The future is now in Chie Hayakawa’s Plan 75. With 30% of Japan’s population over the age of 65 and one of the lowest birth rates in the world, the Japanese face a historic economic and healthcare crisis. The film presents a near future in which Japan formulates an utterly clinical solution: citizens aged 75-plus can voluntarily euthanize themselves for the good of society.
The plan seems to work, with government facilities crowded with seniors like Michi (Chieko Baisho), a retired cleaning lady who, for ¥100,000 (roughly $960), will be put to death. Bureaucrats like Hiromu (Hayato Isomura) and Filipino migrant worker Maria (Stefanie Arianne) both benefit professionally from killing the elderly rather than caring for them, but beneath the surface everyone is left questioning the morality of it all.
Hayakawa crafts what Slant Magazine calls “[a] tale of human solitude and social cruelty.” With subtle, heartbreaking performances and an unflinching examination of Japan’s current situation, Plan 75 captured audiences at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, winning a Caméra d’or Special Mention Award.
Special Mention for Camera d’Or, Cannes 2022
Community Partner
Chieko Baisho, Hayato Isomura, Stefanie Arianne, Yuumi Kawai, Taka Takao
Japan/France/Philippines/Qatar
2022
In Japanese with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Two Strangers Trying Not to Kill Each Other
This intimate and candid film by a younger husband and wife artist team is a delicate and immensely moving dual portrait of two artists, husband and wife, together and apart, at that point in life when the end casts a shadow over even the sunniest day.
Image: © Manon et Jacob and Final Cut For Real
Blue Road - The Edna O'Brien Story
Judging by this candid, funny, passionate biographical documentary, it would have been a wild ride to have been Irish novelist Edna O'Brien, or even to have been in her circle of friends and lovers. Well, for an hour and a half we can pretend we were.
Erupcja
Charli xcx headlines this indie gem about a young English couple coming unmoored over a few days in Warsaw. Will means to propose. Beth has cold feet -- and an escape hatch she has barely admitted to herself... Think Before Sunrise 2025.
Tony Wilson's The Homeless Project
Combining music, text, still photography, and film to shine a sympathetic light on Canada's urban dispossessed, The Homeless Project is the third in composer, guitarist Tony Wilson's series of multimedia projects addressing pressing social issues.
Credits
Producer
Eiko Mizuno-Gray, Jason Gray, Frédéric Corvez, Maéva Savinien
Screenwriter
Chie Hayakawa
Cinematography
Hideho Urata
Editor
Anne Klotz
Original Music
Remi Boubal
Director
Chie Hayakawa
Chie Hayakawa was born in Tokyo and studied photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Her short Niagara (2013) was selected by Cannes Cinéfondation in 2014, won the FIPRESCI Award at the Vladivostok Pacific Meridian International Film Festival, and Grand Prizes at the International Women’s Film Festival in Seoul and the PIA Film Festival. Her short film version of Plan 75 was part of the anthology Ten Years Japan (2018), which premiered at the Busan International Film Festival, followed by theatrical releases and an international festival tour. Plan 75 marks Hayakawa’s feature film directing debut.