Issue:
June 2025
Join the Film Committee…
Join us on Tuesday, June 10 at 5:30 pm for a sneak preview of Chie Hayakawa’s beguiling Cannes Competition title, Renoir. Billed as a young girl’s coming-of-age tale, the film is so much more than that, from a richly layered journey through an earlier era and its seemingly simpler concerns, to a poignant drama about a family falling apart, to a tribute to the healing power of the imagination. Set in 1980s Tokyo, in the waning years of the bubble economy, the film follows Fuki Okita (Yui Suzuki), a precocious 11-year-old whose father, Keiji (Lily Franky), is battling terminal cancer. Because Fuki’s mother, Utako (Hikari Ishida), must work full time as well as care for Keiji, her daughter is left to her own devices. Fortunately, Fuki is an independent-minded girl, and finds all manner of curiosities to explore. But she clearly thirsts for human connections. For brief spells, she’s able to quell her isolation through a series of unusual encounters — with a rich classmate whose family situation is less perfect than it seems; with her English teacher, who takes her surfing; with other children at summer camp — as well as to pursue her interests in telepathy, dowsing and voodoo. Fuki also becomes fascinated with a telephone dating service and agrees to meet a college student with whom she’s developed a friendship. Or so she thinks. Hayakawa and all three of her leads will join us to discuss the film and their experience at the Cannes Film Festival. (Renoir, Japan/France/Singapore/Philippines/Indonesia/Qatar, 2025, 120 minutes, in Japanese, English with English, Japanese subtitles).
Karen Severns is chair of the FCCJ Film Committee
