Online Screening #2
Streaming Period: 10/18/2024 @0:00 – 10/24/2024 @23:59
Ticket sales will end @22:30 on 10/24. The streaming will end at 23:59. Please plan to finish watching the film by then.
Along The Sea (Original title: 海辺の彼女たち / UMIBE NO KANOJOTACHI)
Dir: Akio Fujimoto, starring: HOANG Phuong as Phuong, HUYNH Tuyet Anh as An, QUYNH Nhu as Nhu. Japan/Vietnam, Drama, 2020, 88min. In Vietnamese & Japanese with English and Japanese subtitles (not SDH). Streaming is limited to the viewers in Japan.
©2020 E.x.N K.K. / ever rolling films
ALONG THE SEA follows three Vietnamese women in their early 20s, PHUONG, AN, and NHU. They moved to Japan to work as technical trainees. As they decide to escape their work place, where their passports have been confiscated, they are now illegal migrants in the country. A broker, based in a quiet fishermen village, helps them to find a shelter and a new job in a small fish factory. With their doubled salary, comes also a fisherman’s ice-covered hut where they live together. As they begin their new life, PHUONG starts being sick and suffers severe stomach pains. When AN and NHU take her to a hospital, unable to show any ID card, they are refused admission. PHUONG decides to search for how to get fake documents.
Festivals (selected list)
– San Sebastian FF 2020, New Directors Competition
– Tokyo IFF 2020, World Focus Section
– Cairo IFF 2020, International Panorama
– Fajr IFF 2021, Competition East Vista
– Shanghai IFF 2021, Panorama
– Hawaii IFF 2021, Nominated for Kau Ka Hoku Award
– Vesoul AFF 2022, International Competition
Aki Fujimoto
Born in Osaka, Japan, Fujimoto learned filmmaking at the Visual Arts Academy in Osaka. He made a debut with the feature PASSAGE OF LIFE (2018, Japan-Maynmar), which won the Spirit of Asia Award and the Best Asian Future Film Award at the 30th Tokyo International Film Festival. His second feature ALONG THE SEA (2021, Japan-Vietnam) depicts the lives of Vietnamese technical interns in Japan. This film won the Third Nagisa Oshima Prize at Pia Film Festival, the Kaneto Shindo Award Gold Prize in 2021, the Best Emerging Director Award at the 13th TAMA Film Award, and the 31st Japanese Movie Critics Award 2021 Best New Director.