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In “Plastic,” directed by Daisuke Miyazaki, youth, love, and the unrelenting passage of time are explored against the backdrop of Nagoya, Japan. The film follows Jun (Takuma Fujie) and Ibuki (An Ogawa), two teens who meet by chance because they love the fictional glam-rock band Exne Kedy. Their first encounter—Ibuki pedaling home, lured to Jun’s street busking—lays the groundwork for a beautiful romance that captures adolescence’s naïve energy.

We witness their relationship evolve from charming beginnings to the complexities of adulthood, marked by aspirations, separations, and the overwhelming influence of the epidemic as the narrative progresses. Miyazaki’s film not only follows their personal journey but also resonates with a broader cultural background, reflecting a generation wrestling with aspirations and realities that frequently contradict.

Released in an era when nostalgia and authenticity are in high demand, “Plastic” speaks much about current societal trends. Using music as...

Directed by Daisuke Miyazaki, Plastic is heartwarming in an unobtrusive way. Two teenagers meet in the town of Nagoya, Japan. One is a girl who wears flowy clothes. One is a boy with beach blonde hair. They both like the band Exne Kedy, and I must admit, the soundtrack is incredibly fun. It is inspired by Kensuke Ide's 2021 concept album Strolling Planet '74 - in the sense that the band pretends to be a 70s glam rock group in this film. Ibuki (An Ogawa) starts dating Jun (Takuma Fujie). We cut to a time-skip. Then another, then another. Plastic takes into account how people and life evolve, notably working with the early pandemic period. There's an amazing amount of both humour and youth. There...

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Beginning Friday, October 4, Plastic, Daisuke Miyazaki‘s heartwarming love story propelled by the intoxicating power of shared musical obsession, opens for an exclusive one-week NY theatrical run at Metrograph In Theater. On the same day, the film will also have its streaming premiere on Metrograph At Home, running for an exclusive limited engagement until December 4.

Miyazaki’s tender, colorful, terribly charming tribute to headstrong youthful romance and the transcendent power of pop is inspired (and soundtracked) by musician Kensuke Ide’s eclectic, electrifying 2020 concept album—a record framed as being the work of a fictional ’70s glam rock group, Exne Kedy and the Poltergeists, and their mysterious frontman. In Plastic, rock obsessives Jun and Ibuki (Takuma Fujie and An Ogawa) bond over their mutual love for Exne Kedy’s elusive music, falling in love while trying to track their idols down, only to drift apart during the Covid-19 pandemic… until...

Kyoshi Sugita's fourth feature Following The Sound about four people coming to terms with great personal losses had its world premiere in Venice Film Festival‘s Giornate Degli Autori competiton programme earlier this autumn. Like in his previous films, Sugita makes use of his great understanding of sound or absence of it to craft a compelling story that this time centers around a young woman who, still greaving her mother's passing, makes bond with people who's been living with the same pain.

The Japanese helmer came to Viennale to present his movie to the Austrian audience, and we took the opportunity to sit down with him and talk about his love for the hidden codes of human emotions, the welcoming opportunities that a static camera offers and about turning inner insecurities into one's advantage.

Could you tell us something about your trademark use of sound to create a form...

Kyoshi Sugita is a name the international festival-going audience became aware of since his debut “A Song I Remember” (2011), but the true break-through came with his much anticipated ” Haruhara-san's Recorder” (2021). In his contemplative, gentle drama “Following The Sound” about three people's different ways of dealing with grief, there is a lot of following in its most literal sense, and the sound may just be a part of it all, but it still leads the way. As a proper introduction, the film kicks off with a scene in which the main character Haru (An Ogawa) gets emotionally transported to her past by listening to the recording of burbling water, and that particular tape will remain a key to maintain her connection with the past, and making her ready ready to connect other dots.

“Following the Sound” in Venice International Film Festival

With his fourth feature that premiered in Venice Film Festival's Giornate Degli Autori competiton programme,...

Paralyzed by societal lockdowns, spiritual isolation, and deaths in the millions, the aftermath of Covid-19's rampant virulency continues to deepen the ignorance of a people left traumatized and numb by its ceaseless waves of devastation. Simultaneously fresh and distant, memories of the decade thus far are still distinctly raw, a stinging reminder of mortality, impermanence, and the absurd futility of existence. Though humanity blazes forward with its eyes firmly negating the rearview mirror, many remain immobilized in a state of ennui, desperate yet incapable of regaining control and contentment. Daisuke Miyazaki's coming-of-age drama ‘Plastic' wades into the deep end of this murky quagmire and slowly subdues itself under the crushing weight of its own hopelessness; stripped of pleasure and joy, both the film and its characters struggle to merely exist in a world brought to a complete standstill.

Plastic is screening at Japan Cuts

Ibuki (An Ogawa...