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
The Last Picture Shows
Rustin Thompson journeys into the American West on a search for traces of what was once a center of small-town life: the movie theater. Despite the struggles of recent times, he also discovers inspiring stories of hope and community.
All the Lovers in the Night
A lonely proofreader's isolated world begins to open through an unlikely friendship with a gentle physics teacher. Based on Mieko Kawakami's acclaimed novel, this luminous drama is a delicate meditation on loneliness, intimacy, and self-discovery.
Clarissa
Arie and Chuko Esiri’s Clarissa brings Mrs. Dalloway to present-day Lagos, with Sophie Okonedo playing the titular society hostess opposite David Oyelowo, Ayo Edebiri, and India Amarteifio in a Nigerian vision of class, privilege, and past lives.
Image: © Courtesy of Elevation Pictures
Opening Gala: The Debut
VIFF is honoured to open the festival with this special by-invitation screening of Jesse Eisenberg's The Debut. When meek Mona (Julianne Moore) lands a part in a musical, she fully inhabits her character, but grows increasingly untethered from reality.
Árru
Set against the mountains and fjords of northern Norway, Árru follows reindeer herder Maia as a proposed copper mine threatens her Sámi community, forcing her to fight to protect both her community and the land that sustains it.
The Beloved
When Esteban Martínez, an acclaimed director with violent tendences, invites his estranged daughter to star in his latest project, the stage is set for a familial reconnection. But as tensions flare, questions about his intentions rise to the surface.
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.