Director – Fujino Tomoaki – 2023 – Japan – Cert. N/C 15+ – 102m
***1/2
Remarkable diary film of his sister who has undiagnosed schizophrenia as his parents deprive her of a decent quality of life for 30 years – plays UK cinemas in the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme 2026 which runs from Friday, 6th February to Tuesday, 31st March
Darkness. The sound of a woman angrily, relentlessly, berating her daughter. At least, that’s what it sounds like. Director Fujino Tomoaki clarifies. He’s not trying to explain how his sister got schizophrenia, nor what schizophrenia is.
His elder sister was smarter than him. She spent four years trying to get into Medical School. One night in 1983, at home, she went completely berserk, waking everybody up. She was taken to a psychiatric hospital, who found nothing wrong with her. Tomoaki just doesn’t believe it. Another night at 2am she walked into his room, sobbing. He became worried that if she had another episode, he’d have to fight back, and the consequences might destroy his life. After his father, a medical research academic like his mother, disagreed with a psychiatrist’s thesis as to what was wrong with her, he got a job that enabled him to leave home and escape.… Read the rest