World Premiere | In Competition
Japan, 2026, 95’, Japanese
Directed by: Kimura Taichi
Screenplay: Kuniyoshi Saki, Gaijin Shota
Cinematography (color): Uehara Seiya, Kawakami Tomoyuki, Mitsuoka Hyogo, Sato Ryosuke
Editing: Miyake Aika
Music: Thomas Yardley
Producer: Megumi
Cast: Katayama Yuki, Watanabe Yuna, Ogata Issey, Lily Franky, You, Ijiki Tsuyoshi, Terada Kaede, Suna Shuri, Hashimoto Atsushi, Megumi, Takeshita Keiko, Kishimoto Kayoko
Date of First Release in Territory: June 5th, 2026
There’s a lot of nostalgia now in Japan for the 1970s and 1980s, when people were working hard to create an economic miracle and the culture had a raw creativity and vigor. Think Pac-Man and Walkman. Or Fukasaku Kinji’s gritty action movies that exposed the low-down reality of the yakuza world.
But as Kimura Taichi so vividly and warmheartedly shows in
Fujiko, his comedy/drama about the trials and tribulations of a striving single mom, the era was hardly an easy one for women.
Though the women’s liberation movement was on the rise – the scrappy title heroine (Katayama Yuki) even takes part in an all-woman demo – Japanese men were still by and large staunch chauvinists, who viewed a stubbornly independent woman like Fujiko with alarm or disdain.
When we first meet her in her native Shizuoka, the year is 1982 and she is trying to sell insurance to a weary hotel cook (Lily Franky) on his cigarette break. Undeterred by his refusal, she launches into her story, which begins in 1977 on a dark and stormy night when Fujiko gives birth to a girl she names Mari.
At the time she is married to a wimpy guy under the thumb of his mother (the single-named You), a terror who resents Fujiko’s absence from her toilsome labors at the family dry-cleaning plant. When Fujko insists that she needs to take care of Mari, the mother and her loathsome daughter forcibly take the baby away.
This Dickensian horror does not last: Fujiko’s spunky mom (Kishimoto Kayoko) marches into a meeting with the in-laws and, to Fujiko’s surprise, demands a divorce from the wimp.
This confrontation is played for broad comedy – it devolves into a shouting, tea-tossing interfamilial brawl – and signals that
Fujiko will not be an exercise in miserabilism. It keeps the comic undercurrent while not underplaying the formidable barriers, dangers and temptations Fujiko faces once she has Mari again – and dumps the husband.
The journey to her present-day job as an eager-beaver insurance agent has more peaks than valleys, though. After a stint as a low-paid coffee shop waitress, she finds a cook/server gig at a karuta (traditional Japanese card game) gambling hall whose players look to be cast from a Fukasaku yakuza movie. But her snarling, scary customers also tip well for her delicious yakisoba and for a while she and Mari are living in consumerist heaven.
When Fujiko inevitably hits bottom again, she finds help from a cantankerous old soba chef (Ogata Issey) who was once her dad’s friend and made a drunken scene at his funeral. But he has a heart of gold and hearing that Fumiko is stone-broke offers her and Mari endless free meals at his shop.
She has no intention of becoming his apprentice, however. Insurance pays better, at least for a go-getter like Fujiko. And Tokyo beckons in all its promise, but once again the male species is there to mock her presumption and steer her back to the safer waters of marriage.
Playing this woman-of-the-people character Katayama Yuki is a mix of contending tendencies – tough and tender, fierce and fragile, resilient and reckless. But she reflects the energy and ambition of her era, as well as its discontents, to rousing perfection. Fujiko will prevail.
Kimura Taichi
Kimura Taichi (b. 1987) was born in Tokyo but moved to London to study filmmaking and has since split his time between the two cities. He first gained prominence as a director of music videos for such artists as The Chemical Brothers, Chase & Status, King Gnu, and One Ok Rock. His short Lost Youth (2016) screened at over 15 festivals worldwide. In 2023, he released his first feature film, Afterglows, which had its international premiere at the Japannual Film Festival in Vienna.
SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY
2023 – Afterglow
2026 – Fujiko