Following our U.S. premiere run of his 2019 feature, VIDEOPHOBIA, earlier this year, Spectacle Theater is thrilled to welcome back Daisuke Miyazaki for a retrospective of his work.
After graduating from Waseda University, Miyazaki participated in a New York University film program in Japan where his thesis film, THE 10TH ROOM, won the program’s Grand Prix prize. Miyazaki went on to work as a production designer and assistant director with filmmakers such as Leos Carax and Kiyoshi Kurosawa, before making his feature directorial debut in 2011 with END OF THE NIGHT.
Over the course of the past decade, Miyazaki has developed one of Japan’s most inventive and fearless independent filmmakers. In 2013, he was selected for Berlinale Talents, the Berlin Film Festival’s talent development and networking platform, resulting in the anthology feature film, 5 TO 9, which premiered at the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival in 2015. Miyazaki’s subsequent work has been screened at film festivals around the world, with his features, YAMATO (CALIFORNIA) and TOURISM, receiving rave reviews from the likes of the Hollywood Reporter, Variety, and the New York Times.
Join us on Saturday, July 29th for back-to-back screenings of YAMATO (CALIFORNIA) and TOURISM, followed by Q&As with the filmmaker after each. Regular screenings of both will continue throughout the month of August, along with a collection of Miyazaki’s recent short film works.
YAMATO (CALIFORNIA)
(大和（カリフォルニア）)
dir. Daisuke Miyazaki, 2016
Japan. 119 min.
In Japanese with English subtitles.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 2 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, AUGUST 6 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, AUGUST 18 – 5 PM
MONDAY, AUGUST 28 – 7:30 PM
Sakura (Hanae Kan) is an angsty teenager living near a U.S. military base in the Tokyo suburb of Yamato. Sakura aspires to one day become a rapper like the American MCs she admires, but is constantly struck with stage fright when performing in front of an audience. When Rei (Nina Endo), the daughter of her mother’s American soldier boyfriend, comes to visit from California, she and Sakura strike up a rocky bond over their shared love of music, setting Sakura on a course towards facing her fear and making her dream a reality.
For his second feature, Miyazaki largely drew from his own experience growing up in Yamato, where the local culture was heavily influenced by the U.S. military’s Atsugi Airbase located in the center of town. Sakura’s rebelliousness reflects the tension many local residents felt being torn between the Eastern and Western world; on the one hand cultivating their own individual Japanese identities, while on the other, having Western cultural influence frequently imposed on them. In a sense, Sakura’s coming-of-age against the vacant, capitalism-driven landscape of Yamato is as much her own story as it is the story of Japan’s own global identity and complex relationship to Western extraterritoriality and colonization that persists to this day.
TOURISM
dir. Daisuke Miyazaki, 2018
Japan/Singapore. 77 min.
In Japanese & English with English subtitles.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 3 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, AUGUST 13 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, AUGUST 25 – 5 PM
TUESDAY, AUGUST 29 – 7:30 PM
When Nina (Nina Endo) wins a pair of free airline tickets, she leaves her dingy apartment and part-time factory job to take her first trip abroad. She and her best friend, Su (Sumire), travel to Singapore where they find themselves displaced in a short period of time by the country’s mix of the familiar and unfamiliar, predictable and unpredictable. When Nina loses her smartphone, she ventures out to explore a new side of the city, discovering new sides of herself in the process.
Miyazaki’s third feature is an ambitious blend of styles and formats, combining narrative fiction and documentary techniques alongside Youtube travel vlog aesthetics and Snapchat filters to craft an incredibly unique portrait of modern life. The immediacy of Miyazaki’s borderline-guerrilla shooting style cuts to the heart of the alienation, excitement, apprehensions, and consumer curiosities one feels when dropped into a new setting.
DAISUKE MIYAZAKI SHORT FILMS PROGRAM
dir. Daisuke Miyazaki, 2021-22
Japan. 88 min.
In Japanese with English subtitles.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 5 – 3 PM
FRIDAY, AUGUST 11 – 5 PM
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 16 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, AUGUST 21 – 7:30 PM
A collection of recent short film works by Daisuke Miyazaki. The program will include the following works:
(北新宿2055)
dir. Daisuke Miyazaki, 2021
Japan. 35 min.
In Japanese with English subtitles.
In the year 2055, North Shinjuku has become a de facto closed-off community. While still a part of Japan, it now has its own rules, history, and politics that the locals fiercely stick to. To outsiders, the district remains a mystery, until a journalist rooting around for information on the area scores an unexpected interview with a local big shot who promises to explain its history and happenings.
I’LL BE YOUR MIRROR
dir. Daisuke Miyazaki, 2022
Japan. 10 min.
In Japanese with English subtitles.
This companion film to Miyazaki’s VIDEOPHOBIA depicts a young woman (VIDEOPHOBIA’s Tomona Hirota) returning home where she and another woman spend an evening in with their husband, who speaks to them as if they are one entity. Appropriately, the film acts almost as a mirror to VIDEOPHOBIA, exploring the concept of a single identity within multiple people where the other concerns a single person with multiple identities.
(ヤマト探偵日記)
dir. Daisuke Miyazaki, 2022
Japan. 23 min.
In Japanese with English subtitles.
Madoka is a young apprentice detective who’s finally landed her first assignment: A search for a woman who abandoned her husband and home. At the same time, Madoka’s sister, Mahoro, arrives from their hometown of Nagano for a poorly timed visit. Madoka prioritizes her work, leaving Mahoro to wander around the city of Yamato in search of Madoka, as Madoka deepens her search for the missing woman.
CAVEMAN’S ELEGY
dir. Daisuke Miyazaki, 2022
Japan. 20 min.
In Japanese with English subtitles.
“When can we become human beings?”