NextThreeDays: Event Display

Japenese Film Festival: Still Walking
Venue: Lyric Theatre, Blacksburg
Directions: Google Map Link
Date: Saturday, February 11, 2012
Time: 3:00 - 5:00 PM
Event Types: Arts & Theatre
Cost: Free
Description:
The special showing of Still Walking is the second film of the Japanese Film Festival. Three films in total will be shown with English subtitles.

Director Hirokazu Kore-eda writes and directs this family drama that unfolds over the course of a single summer day as the Yokoyama family gathers for a rare reunion held to commemorate the death of the one who was taken before his time.

It was 15 years ago that eldest Yokoyama son, Junpei, drowned in a tragic accident, and the only changes around the family home since that fateful day are so subtle that they're not likely to be noticed by anyone outside of the immediate family. Retired family patriarch Kyohei (Yoshio Harada) used to run a successful medical clinic out of the home, though the lights in his medical examining room haven't even been turned on in years. The tiles in the kitchen where energetic Toshiko (Kirin Kiki) cooks family meals are slowly coming loose, and as youngest son Ryota (Hiroshi Abe) arrives home, he does his best to hide the fact that he's currently unemployed. His older sister, Chinami (You), has also arrived with her family, and does her best to entertain everyone despite the undeniable cloud of melancholy hanging over the home.

As the festive gathering commences and Toshiko lays out a lavish meal, it gradually becomes obvious that resentment and sorrow bonds this family as powerfully as love.

The film is not rated.

The Japanese Film Festival is sponsored by John & Mihoko Lanier with support from the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures and the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at Virginia Tech.

For more information, visit: http://www.thelyric.com/events/?ID=1129