JAPANEMA Online

Zokki
(113mins, 2021)
Directed by Naoto Takenaka, Takayuki Yamada, Takumi Saitoh
In Japanese with English subtitles

Wednesday, September 8, 7PM – Thursday, September 9, 7PM（PDT）
Click Here to Watch (accessible during screening period only)

©2020 ZOKKI Production Committee

Live-action feature film adaptation of the same-named comic by manga artist Hiroyuki Ohashi, whose "On-Gaku: Our Sound" hit the big screen as an animated film. Interweaves multiple episodes. Directed by Takumi Saitoh, actor Takayuki Yamada and actor Naoto Takenaka, who won the FIPRESCI Prize at the 48th Venice Film Festival for “Nowhere Man”. Each director handled casting for his own section, and they co-directed the interconnecting scenes. Screenplay by theater director and playwright Yutaka Kuramochi.

The film’s five loosely connected storylines concern the secrets and lies, the fears and tears, and the puerile potty jokes that punctuate their daily (and in one eerie case, nightly) encounters. Marked by gentle humor, this bundle of refreshingly unique tales (whose title literally references the way paperbacks are bundled for sale in used bookshops) is strangely amusing and ultimately moving.

Watch the Trailer

This screening is partnershipped with Filmination which is a Japanese trading company specialized in selling Japanese movies to global VODs.