By the Window

Shigemi interviews the young writer Rua, whose latest novel and the high school student's associated meteoric rise fascinates the journalist. His own literary ambitions were years ago, and his relationship with his wife, who continues to publish, seems to have cooled. Rua invites Shigemi to follow in her novel's footsteps, to meet the exemplary people of her novel's characters, and he readily agrees. What in the last century could have been the beginning of an unequal relationship story with a clearly oblique age level, remains here highly professional. Shigemi has no romantic interest in the young author, rather he struggles with the fact that his own wife is having an affair with a good friend, also an author. He is unable to confront her with his knowledge of this. He would rather brood over his situation and seek distraction in Rua's living influence. It is not until the discovery of another affair that Shigemi decides to leave his turtle habitat.

His films are popular, and not just at Japannual, where director Rikiya IMAIZUMI has previously appeared with Straying (2022) and In Those Days (2021). This film won the audience award at the Tokyo Film Festival.