Directors with Japanese roots offer stories of love, friendship, self-discovery

By Atsuko Kitayama

TORONTO (Reuters) - Three directors with roots in Japan came to this year's Toronto International Film Festival with heartfelt films about the emotional lives of young people, telling stories of new love, identity quest, and resilient friendship in a world where even the ground is unstable.

Director Hiroshi Okuyama's "My Sunshine" is a poignant winter love story that swirls around among two adolescent figure skaters and their coach in a small, snowy town in Japan.

"I wanted to capture a boy's growing up over a winter," Okuyama said in the email to Reuters.

He said he left a lot of room for interpretations in the film, so that the audience could fill the blanks with their own thoughts.

"Through the process, I hope the audience realizes 'Ah, this film could very well be for me,'" he said.

The film also screened at the Cannes Film Festival in May.

In 2018, Okuyama won the New Directors Award at the San Sebastian Film Festival in Spain at the age of 22 with his debut feature "Jesus," becoming the youngest ever recipient at the festival.

Japanese-French director Koya Kamura's “Winter in Sokcho,” an adaptation of the novel by the same name, spotlights a young woman with a French father and South Korean mother living in a small town of Sokcho, South Korea. As she confronts complicated feelings toward her father, whom she has never met, she embarks on a quest to define her own identity after a triggering encounter with a Frenchman who visited the town.

To Kamura, the character's journey resonated as if it were his own. "I felt some kind of connection," Kamura said in an interview with Reuters.

He himself always felt like a "foreigner" both in France and Japan, questioning how to define himself throughout his life.

"I felt like I had no country on my own," he said. "It took me a while to accept that I could be in between and that I didn't have to validate from the others my background somehow."

Naturally, Kamura's message in his debut feature was one of self-acceptance.

"Accept yourself how you are, the way you are, your background, and communicate more with you," he said.

Kamura believes that the story is universal and has the potential to deliver its message far beyond South Korea.

Another film that captured the intricacy of human connection was "Happyend." Director Neo Sora portrays the evolving relationships and inner struggles of two high school friends in a Tokyo set in the near-future, as the graduation draws near and the future remains uncertain.

The film, which made its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival this month, is expected to be released in the U.S. next year.

Sora is best known for his last year's documentary tribute to his late father, "Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus."

(Reporting by Atsuko Kitayama in Toronto; Editing by Nick Zieminski)