Distance

Japan

2001

132 Min

Color

1.70:1

Japanese

Currently 4.0/5 Stars.
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EXEC Akira Saito, Yutaka Shigenobu

PROD Akira Saito, Yutaka Shigenobu

CAST Arata, Yûsuke Iseya, Susumu Terajima, Yui Natsukawa, Tadanobu Asano

SOUND Eiji Mori

Cannes (In Competition), Edinburgh (Eyes of the World), Toronto (Contemporary World Cinema), Stockholm (Asian Images)

Synopsis

A massacre initiated by the followers of an apocalyptic religious sect, the Ark of Truth, leaves more than a hundred people dead – including the self-appointed executioners, slain by fellow cult members.

Three years pass. On the anniversary of the slaughter, four friends who lost loved ones in the tragedy seek solace by journeying to the secluded lake where it all began. They encounter a man who was with the executioners until the very moment the killing began, and their pilgrimage takes a strange, unexpected turn. –Trigon Film

Director

Hirokazu Kore-eda

Born in Tokyo in 1962. Originally intended to be a novelist, but after graduating from Waseda University in 1987 went on to become an assistant director at TV Man Union. Sneaked off set to film Lessons from a Calf (1991). His first feature, Maboroshi no hikari (1995), based on a Teru Miyamoto novel and drawn from his own experiences whilst filming August Without Him (1994), won jury prizes at Venice and Chicago. The main themes of his oeuvre include memory and loss, death and loss, and the intersection of documentary and fictional narratives. —IMDb