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ASAKO I & II
February 5, 2023
Moderator: Michel Pichot
Panelists: Spencer Everhart (Film) and Naoki Kanaboshi (Culture)
Director: Ryusuke Hamaguchi
Year: 2018
Country: Japan
Asako lives in Osaka. She falls in love with Baku, a free-spirit. One day, Baku suddenly disappears. Two years later, Asako now lives in Tokyo and meets Ryohei. He looks just like Baku, but has a completely different personality.
Festival Premiere
2018 Cannes Film Festival
Official Selection
Awards
Audience Award, Nominee
2018 San Sebastián International Film Festival
Best Film, Nominee
2018 Hochi Film Awards
"Hamaguchi exhibits a careful, un-showy command of the frame, and a talent for creating small, sometimes comic surprises through editing. Gently and leisurely, he charts the mundane rhythms of the romance, to the point where a viewer might wonder where the movie could possibly be going, if anywhere."
-- A.A. Dowd, AV Club
"This is a film by turns nostalgic, romantic and melancholic – with the gentlest of heightened conceits that shakes its emotional foundations."
-- Michael Leader, Sight & Sound
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