All The Long Nights

Bringing LIFF 2024 to a fitting close is an uplifting and radiant tribute to friendship by Shô Miyake, one of Japan's most promising filmmakers. 

This hopeful and radiant ode to friendship by Shô Miyake, one of Japan's most exciting new filmmakers, provides a fitting finale to LIFF 2024. The film follows Misa, a young woman with debilitating PMS that manifests in volatile outbursts. When she leaves her corporate job for a gentler workplace, a company making scientific toys, she encounters the shy Takatoshi, a co-worker struggling with panic disorder. Through mutual support and small acts of kindness, the two discover a world outside themselves, and a shared project on a portable planetarium culminates in a tender moment of stargazing. With luminous cinematography shot on 16mm, Miyake has crafted a poetic work of great beauty.

"The chemistry between Kamishiraishi and Matsumura, who played a married couple on the NHK morning drama Come Come Everybody, creates a mood of radiant warmth and, finally, joy." - Mark Schilling, The Japan Times