Teenage rebel Amiko loves Radiohead but hates pretty much everything else about her boring and banal existence — and her provincial high school above all. Then she meets a boy…
Writer-director Yoko Yamanaka created the film at 19 years old after dropping out of film school, and the rest of the crew was similarly youthful, ranging from 18 to 20 years old. They created the film on a budget of $2,500. A fifth of that budget was spent repairing a car Yamanaka crashed on the way to the set. Money well spent, given that Amiko went on to play film festivals all over the world.
Amiko is a condensed ball of manic energy from start to finish.
Clarence Tsui, Hollywood Reporter
Perfectly evokes the subtle cruelties of high school and the way in which teenage hierarchies function… An extremely self-assured and engaging debut.
Another Gaze
Shot with the manic verve of an amateur travel vlog, twenty-year-old Yoko Yamanaka’s surreal debut captures the unspoken, often inarticulable facets of modern youth.
Siddhant Adlakha, Village Voice
Yôko Yamanaka
Aira Sunohara, Hiroro Oshita
Japan
2017
In Japanese with English subtitles
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