My Sunshine

Young Takuya is an introverted schoolboy in a small Japanese town where there is little more to do than indulge in seasonal sports. In summer he stands absent-mindedly on the baseball field, in winter he tries - in vain - to protect the goal in ice hockey. On the other side of the ice, figure skater Sakura, who is the same age as him, is practising pirouettes and arabesques under the guidance of her coach and has captivated Takuya with her graceful performances. When he awkwardly tries to imitate the figure skating moves in his ice hockey skates after his training session, this awakens a long-forgotten dream in the coach. He soon begins to train the two children together. As winter progresses and the sun's rays melt away the snow, a unique dynamic develops between the three of them that seems as ephemeral as a snowflake.

In his second feature film, director Hiroshi OKUYAMA captures the reflections of light in the shimmering snow, not only as screenwriter and editor, but above all as cinematographer, and tells a story about children's everyday lives and small dreams. After his amusing first film Jesus, which won a number of awards in 2018, he also directed several episodes in Kore-eda's Netflix series The Makanai. The coach of the two children is played by Japannual favourite Sosuke IKEMATSU. He has already appeared in Okiku and the World (2023), Just Remembering (2022), The Asian Angel (2021), Miyamoto (2020), Shinya TSUKAMOTO's Killing (2018) and a number of other films at our festival.