Ripples

As refreshing as the sterile water that Yoriko obtains bottled in elegant bottles from a dubious sect and worships like icons is this tragicomedy that comments ironically on Japanese society and the ubiquitous construct of the nuclear family. The story's point of departure is the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident, which leads to Yoriko's husband secretly absconding out of too much fear of radioactive contamination. Years later, after these unfortunate incidents, the audience finds Yoriko in a mental state in which she seems to maintain inner peace only through strict control of her surroundings and regular meditation in front of her purist-looking water bottles, whose mundane contents are meant to purify her soul. When suddenly her missing husband and adult son return to the house with his new girlfriend, the concentric ripples, kept as small as possible, that oscillated on the surface of her psyche in reaction to the former events, start to make bigger and bigger waves.

The films of director Naoko OGIGAMI are closely linked to the history of Japannual. From her comes the very first opening film of our 2017 festival Close-Knit. Last year, she was successfully represented at Japannual with Riverside Mukolitta.