These are four films shouldn’t not miss at the 17th Skip City International D-Cinema Festival which will take place virtually from September 26th until October 4th (2020).

About the festival:
Established in 2004, has been held every year as a “gateway for emerging talent” centered on the International Competition and the Japanese Film Competition (features and shorts). The festival launched the careers of Kazuya Shiraishi (Sea of Revival), Ryota Nakano (The Asadas), Shinichiro Ueda (One Cut of the Dead), Shinzo Katayama (Siblings of the Cape) and many other directors who are leading the Japanese film industry as top runners and whose new movies audiences are looking forward to seeing.

The films will be screened at “Cinema Discoveries” website: https://cinemadiscoveries.co.jp

Selected Films:

In 2020, the Tokyo Olympics have been cancelled due to the Olympic Minister’s corruption, and there was a failed poison gas attack by a new religion. In the shadows of these two major events, the brutal killing of a convenience store owner occurs. The incident is dubbed “Icarus.” Sana, who had contact with the owner’s son, Shiro, becomes the subject of interrogation by detectives. Suffering from dissociative identity disorder, she and the other personalities inside her each begin to recall events from their point of view.

Trailer:
https://youtu.be/xlUfM0McuUM

Sora retraces the diary written by her grandfather during the Second World War and has begun a search for a mysterious treasure. Around that time, a homeless man who wordlessly walks backwards shows up in the town where she lives. One night, her drunk father hits that man with the car he is driving. Sora allows the man to stay the night in their home, but the next morning she learns her father sent the man away, so she rushes out of the house.

Trailer:
https://youtu.be/8GK2iRyBfVQ

Toko was roaming around a forest in the middle of a downpour. She wakes up in a home where four people of both genders reside together. However, there is something unnatural about them. As she is taught how to boil the water for the outdoor drum canister bathtub and how to wash laundry at a mountain stream, Toko slowly adapts to their self-contained way of living including procuring foodstuffs from anywhere. But then, something mysterious begins to occur.

Trailer:
https://youtu.be/QaezXba6Ssc

Kai has a fundamental fear of women. He lives a solitary lifestyle while running a timeworn photo studio where he takes advantage of his high-level retouching skills. One day he encounters an injured woman, Kyoko, who begs him to apply his image processing skills to create photos showing a beautiful representation of herself without wounds. Kyoko becomes enthralled by that representation, but on the other hand her own being starts to falter.

Trailer:
https://youtu.be/zbywBl91yJY

For more information about the festival and the programme please visit the official website here: https://www.skipcity-dcf.jp/en