Cannes Film Festival 1993, Toronto International Film Festival 2024
Based on a novel of the same name by Hiko Tanaka, Moving centres on precocious fifth grader, Renko (deftly played by Tomoko Tabata in her first role), who is grappling with the separation of her parents. Faced with the possibility of never seeing her father again and being subjected to a future she did not design, Renko becomes an irrepressible force, stopping at nothing to bring her parents back together. Uniquely situated from the perspective of a child, the film thrums with an intensity that builds to a transcendent third act and expands Somai’s prized oeuvre of films detailing rebellious youth
Widely lauded in his native Japan, director Shinji Somai remains largely unrecognized in the West. A pioneering filmmaker during what is sometimes referred to as the “lost decade” of Japanese cinema, Somai came to prominence during the 1980s, and directed some of the era’s most original and enduring works.
mk2 Films