a foggy paradise

Tatsuya (37 years old) works as an investigator of traffic volume, and lives with his mother Naoko (67 years old) who is becoming physically handicapped. Every night, Tatsuya assists his mother to the bathroom when a buzzer notices him for help. However, Tatsuya doesn’t open up to his mother who has unconsciously been feudalistic towards him. His job as an investigator of traffic volume is to continuously count people going by with a counter. Not having any place for himself, Tatsuya has an empty body and heart, and sometimes spend nights at capsule hotels.

In the modern world, news about war in a foreign country is streaming from the radio. Kurage (23 years old) goes to visit a room where an old man who is in a vegetative state lives. Kurage takes care of this old man whom he doesn’t even know his name nor speaks, but the old man lives in a housing complex which is planned to be taken down due to deterioration. One day, Kurage meets his childhood friend Ame (23 years old) for the first
time in a while, shows her the room the old man lives in, and a small relationship is created.While the date of taking down the housing complex is getting near, Kurage and Ame take the old man with them on a drive trip in a van.

A parallel story about life and death of two groups living in the city.

  • Yohei Kotsuji
    Director
    Kishibe no heya(2017)
  • Yohei Kotsuji
    Writer
    Kishibe no heya(2017)
  • Aya Kotsuji
    Producer
    Kishibe no heya(2017)
  • Yuya Okutsu
    Key Cast
    "Tatsuya"
    Firing The Lighter Gun(2022),In the Wake(2021),shing shing shing(2011)
  • Masatoshi Lee
    Key Cast
    "Kurage"
  • Yasumi Yajima
    Key Cast
    "Naoko"
    Forgotten Planets(2018),Edaha no koto(2017)
  • Haru Naito
    Key Cast
    "Ame"
  • Tom Kiran
    Key Cast
    "old man"
    Aitakute Tamaranai(2022)
  • Ryo Teranishi
    Cinematography
    FORGOTTEN(2021),MIIKO IN A LOFT(2020)
  • Aya Kotsuji
    Editor
    Kishibe no heya(2017)
  • Masahiro Nishino
    Electrician
    Distance in Between(2021)
  • Hikaru Nakashima
    Sound
  • Tatsunari Ota
    Sound
    There Is a Stone(2023)
  • Osier (Luck Gun)
    Music
  • Yuko Igari
    Production Designer
  • Kenshiro Ishikura
    Production Designer
  • Ayano Yamazaki
    Production Designer
  • Tadayoshi Fujimura
    Production Designer
  • Project Type:
    Feature
  • Runtime:
    2 hours 47 minutes 8 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    March 23, 2023
  • Production Budget:
    2,000,000 JPY
  • Country of Origin:
    Japan
  • Country of Filming:
    Japan
  • Language:
    Japanese
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Yohei Kotsuji

Born in Fukui, Japan in 1985. After 1 year of studying movie production, currently working as a teacher at a special support school while producing independent movies. This is 1st feature film for me, and was created with a grant from Agency for Cultural Affairs.

【Filmography】

Kishibe no heya 「岸辺の部屋」 (2017, 19min)
・Sendai short film festival 2017 「New Talent Competition」
・Fukuoka Independent Film Festival 2017
・DROP CINEMA FESTIVAL vol.30

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

I want to create films as if you can see the landscapes from a car window. To me, that is “Knowing a small part of the world for the first time.” Therefore, I stand in a position “where narrative film is also a documentary recording actors act their role,” and value
filming impromptu during rehearsals and at filming locations. It is because I am interested in finding new discoveries when giving the role to the actor instead of seeing controlled acting through scripts or directions.

Another thing I value is discovering “moments that are vague and uncertain and mean nothing at a glimpse” instead of forming a story. In actual life, things always happen suddenly without expectation, and it is impossible to understand everything. With production, I also aim to make films that are not clear and easy to understand, but films that touch the incompleteness of actual life.

This film has two parallel stories about life and death.These are family stories which origin in my personal experience.This film is also experiment to see what would happens if a film has different parallel stories.