Desert of Namibia

At just 21, Kana could be enjoying the carefree, carefree life of a young adult, but she can't. She seems to be apathetic everywhere she goes, meets friends, hangs out in clubs, goes about her work, and even the affair she has in addition to her partnership leaves her uninvolved and indifferent. Her fellow human beings find her difficult, including her boyfriend, who lovingly cares for her in the flat they share. Kana cannot cope with this kind of care, but a change of partner is just another expression of the corrosive indifference to which she is exposed. A vague psychiatric diagnosis cannot steer the young woman's aimlessness in the direction she had hoped for, and even boyfriends who compete with her for possession do not help enormously here, but instead allow the destructiveness of her relationships to escalate continually. The desire for cathartic cleansing grows within her, but what remains for the moment is the longing for a waterhole in the desert.

Director Yoko YAMANAKA astonished audiences at the 2018 festival in Berlin (and subsequently at Japannual) with her debut film Amiko. She was just 20 at the time and her quirky no-budget romance enchanted hardened festival hearts. Now she too has grown up, the lightness has given way to a serious examination of a psychologically complicated character for her second film Desert of Namibia. Yuumi KAWAI masters the difficult task of the ambivalent portrayal of the characteristically challenged young woman masterfully. KAWAI can also be seen this year at Japannual as A Girl named Ann and has often appeared at Japannual in previous years (A Man, A Hundred Flowers, Plan 75). She was nominated several times for Best Supporting Actress for the latter film, as well as for A Balance 2022. She is also nominated for her role in the Netflix series Extremely Inappropriate! (2024), she is also known in this country.