Still Walking (Japan 2008)
Dir Hirokazu Kore-eda/118min
English subtitles

Forty-year-old Ryota, with his wife and stepson, visits his elderly parents to commemorate his older brother, who died saving a boy from drowning. Kore-eda’s subtle, moving account of the tensions within a family is his most Ozu-like film, a study of the different assumptions and value systems of different generations. This was the director’s first film to feature veteran actress Kirin Kiki, who would become his regular collaborator.

Following the screening we are delighted that director Hirokazu Kore-eda will join us for Q&A. Don’t miss this rare opportunity to see one of Japan’s foremost directors.

In a career in feature film-making that spans nearly a quarter of a century, Hirokazu Kore-eda has become certainly the most critically acclaimed and among the most widely distributed of contemporary Japanese live-action directors. His subjects range from the samurai of Hana (2006) to the blow-up doll come to life in Air Doll (2009), and his chosen genres from fantasy (After Life, 1998) to courtroom drama (The Third Murder, 2017). However, his most fertile territory is that of the family drama, a genre of distinguished pedigree in Japan going back to the era of Ozu Yasujiro and Naruse Mikio, with both of whom Kore-eda has often been compared… When he won the Palm d’Or at Cannes last year for his film Shoplifters, he became the first Japanese director to secure that honour in 21 years.

Alexander Jacoby, Sight & Sound May 2019

Tickets £12.50, concs £10.20 (BFI Members pay £2 less)

On sale to BFI Champions Thu 11 April 11:30, to BFI Members Thu 11 April 12:30 and to the public Thu 11 April from 16:00.

In association with the Japan Foundation