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 Prosecutors
In the midst of Stalin’s purges, a naïve prosecutor sets out to investigate a prisoner’s innocence, unaware of the labyrinthine bureaucracy awaiting him. A Kafkaesque procedural thriller about the pursuit of justice in the face of corruption.
Image: © SBS Productions
Crepúsculo
A brain surgeon (Arturo de Córdova) begins to doubt his own sanity when the woman he's in love with (Gloria Marin) marries his brother — and he starts fantasizing about murder.
Victims of Sin
This movie is a hot scramble of piety and passion, sentimentality and sleaze. Ninón Sevilla plays Violeta, a rumba sensation who oversteps when she rescues a newborn from the trash. This gets her fired and wins the enmity of the pimp who fathered the kid.
Calle Málaga
Seventy-nine-year-old María Ángeles lives independently in Tangier's Spanish quarter. When her daughter pressures her into selling her apartment, she refuses to give in, finding in her old age a new resilience and an unexpected romantic connection.
In the Palm of Your Hand
Charming, (over-)confident clairvoyant Professor Karin hits the jackpot when he hears about a beautiful widow whose millionaire husband has just died. But you don't need to be psychic to see that blackmailing a killer may not be his best idea...
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.