Belonging

Would it be desirable if we could actually return to the world of the living, to our loved ones, after our death? What if we could do this within an object, a thing we cherished while alive? Four different people are given this opportunity to put themselves inside an inanimate object and observe those they left behind and share in their lives. Firstly, there is Koharu, who puts herself in the coffee cup she bought with her husband and has to watch as he and his new partner consider buying new cups. There's a little boy who is transported to his beloved climbing frame in the park and has to witness how all his friends are now getting bigger and leaving the activities in the park behind. There is also the elderly lady who has bequeathed her grandson a camera, which she can now put herself in to be with her grandson forever. The fact that he doesn't appreciate the camera equally and wants to get rid of it soon was not part of the plan. And finally, there is the recently deceased mother, who longs to see her young son celebrate success as a baseball player.

In her second film, director Kahori HIGASHI also deals with loss and holding on to what has been lost. As in Melting Sounds (Japannual 2022) and in her other film in this year's Japannual programme Memories of his Scent, director and screenwriter Higashi continues to describe new ways to counteract the disappearance of beloved things. In Belonging, she adapts a novel by her mother Naoko HIGASHI and this time it is the lost ones themselves who do everything they can to stay.