Get your tickets and buckle up to a dreamy head spinning ride because this movie is unique, original, complex, challenging, a quiet mash up of different genres which awakens different feelings inside you. A surprising combination of urban legends, Eastern fairy tales, recent history, ghost stories, tragedies waltzing with animation, musical, farce and cynical, criticizing, dark comedy elements, references of remarkable literature passages including Little Prince and Faust.
By Nilüfer Yenidoğan Özmekik for Winter Film Awards
See the NYC Premiere of Nipponia Nippon – Fukushima Rhapsody on Thursday Feb 27 @7:45pm at Cinema Village (22 East 12th Street) as part of New York City’s 9th Annual Winter Film Awards International Film Festival.
At the beginning, an animated fairytale about a kingdom invaded by fleas indicates that we are about to watch something complex, challenging with a different story-telling style and direction. As the musical animated parts of the story end, we learn more about the plot and characters’ back stories.
Eight years have passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami of 2011, and the citizens try to adapt in their new life conditions and move on their lives. The movie’s story takes place in Naraho Town, in Fukushima Prefecture. The dangerous and frightening fact about the town — it is on the front-line of the government-funded nuclear power plant decommissioning work.
We’re introduced to Kokuhei Kusunoki (Daisuke Ryu), who lives with his physician daughter-in-law and his young daughter in Aizu Wakamatsu City. He shares the news with his family that he got a promotion and is transferred to Naraho Town without having any proper knowledge what kind of responsibilities and work conditions he’s going to face. As soon as he starts his new position and meets with unique co-workers, he realizes here must be something really wrong about this place.
His boss Murai (Minoru Terada) takes Kokuhei around Fukushima to show him the areas washed away by tsunami. They observe the incomplete railway lines, decontamination area and villages located at the danger zone and as they get a closer look, they find out cesium still continues to pile up at the area.
Kokuhei finds out the ugly true reality about Fukushima’s challenging history by visiting with the residents of the area and the construction workers. Surprisingly, his boss acts nonchalant and pleased after seeing the tragedy the residents endure at the area — he acts like they’re visiting a carnival area, having a fun time. This sets alarm bells ringing – Fukushima must have some kind of thrilling power on the people to distort their realities and ability to differentiate between right and wrong.
In the meantime, Haruka, daughter in-law of Kokuhei, resumes working at the Pediatric hospital in Aizu Wakamatsu City. She shows special interest in one of her patients: a little boy named Yu who talks with ghosts and keeps disappearing to follow them. The boy connects with the people who recently lost their lives after the tragic events changed the town’s complete history indefinitely.
Kokuhei observes the raising madness and inappropriate behaviors of his coworkers as if they’d been heavy drugged and lost their senses. And now he is asked to organize a party to celebrate the professor who has been recently promoted to deputy director of the Atomic Energy Research Institute.
As the party begins, Kokuhei finally realizes, things in the town are getting completely out of control and he has to do something to prevent it before madness take over the entire place.
The epic final, poetic, folkloric, absurd and tragic conclusion of the story make you question the challenging situation and compelling struggles to survive and shape your life after natural disasters demolishes everything you work on and care for.
Director Ryo Saitani took risks to compose a symphony with different musical genres in order to create something unusual, provocative and startling to present us with something unforeseeable and unpredictable. If you want to explore something unconventional, entertaining and also mind-bending, you have to take your seat at the theater and get ready to be served with this unique experience.
Nilufer Yenidogan Ozmekik
Nilufer Yenidogan Ozmekik is screen writer, executive producer and founder of her new production company “N&Dreamakers Pictures”. After her graduation from Istanbul University/Faculty of International Relations, Nilufer finished her MA at Bilgi University Faculty of Communication & Media Studies, Cinema-Television, she started her writing career as screen writer for several highly rated Turkish TV series. For the past 7 years, she’s been living in the USA and creating projects for both American and Turkish movie and TV industry. In the last three years, her two movies “Fairytale of New York” and “Sleep of Love” have been released at selected US and European theatres. She is great fan of thrillers, fantasy books and Hitchcock, Argento, Fincher, Del Toro, Verbinski movies. She is also thankful to Satan for the inspiration when she’s writing her thrillers.
About Winter Film Awards
New York City’s 9th Annual Winter Film Awards International Film Festival runs February 20-29 2020. Check out a jam-packed lineup of 79 fantastic films in all genres from 27 countries, including shorts, features, Animation, Drama, Comedy, Thriller, Horror, Documentary and Music Video. Hollywood might ignore women and people of color, but Winter Film Awards celebrates everyone!
Winter Film Awards is an all volunteer, minority- and women-owned registered 501(c)3 non-profit organization founded in 2011 in New York City by a group of filmmakers and enthusiasts. The program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the NY State Council on the Arts.
