Skip to main content
Riverside Mukolitta film image, director Naoko Ogigami

Riverside Mukolitta

川っぺりムコリッタ

This event has passed

North American Premiere

Naoko Ogigami, director of VIFF 2017 favorite Close-Knit, returns to the festival with a gentle comedy/drama about second chances and the transformative power of friendship.

Riverside Mukolitta stars Kenichi Matsuyama as Yamada, an ex-con trying to come to terms with the death of his estranged father. In an attempt to make a fresh start, Yamada moves to a small fishing town and finds work processing dried squid. Helping him get back on his feet, Yamada’s manager finds him a place to live in an old apartment building populated by a motley group of misfits. Holding this community together is Shiori (Hikari Mitsushima), the landlady harbouring her own tragic past. How can healing happen in such an odd place?

Based on Ogigami’s own 2019 novel, Riverside Mukolitta approaches the topic of mortality with reassuring simplicity and a dry, quirky sense of humor, taking the audience along with Yamada as he discovers that life’s sorrows and burdens are easier to bear with kindred spirits to help you bear them.

 

Media Partner

Director
Cast

Kenichi Matsuyama, Tsuyoshi Muro, Hikari Mitsushima, Noriko Eguchi, Daisuke Kuroda, Toshiaki Chiku

Credits
Country of Origin

Japan

Year

2021

Language

In Japanese with English subtitles

Film Contact
18+
121 min
Comedy Drama Women Directors

Book Tickets

This event has passed.

Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre

Train Dreams

Dir. Clint Bentley
104 min

A lovely, ruminative movie set in the Pacific Northwest in the first half of the last century. Robert (Joel Edgerton) is a lumberjack, a taciturn man who comes to appreciate the life slipping between his fingers.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Wisdom of Happiness

Dir. Philip Delaquis & Barbara Miller
90 min

An audience with the Dalia Lama, who, at 90, looks back on his life and shares the tenets of Buddhism as a practical guide to surviving the 21st Century with joy and compassion.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Force of Evil

Dir. Abraham Polonsky
79 min

Director-screenwriter Abraham Polonsky uses the mob-controlled "numbers" racket to highlight the soul-destroying elements of capitalism in this punchy noir crime drama. Introduced by Mike Archibald.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Köln 75

Dir. Ido Fluk
116 min

The true story behind the greatest solo concert in jazz history, this is Keith Jarrett's legendary 1975 Köln Concert — as organized by 18-year-old rebel music promoter Vera Brandes. Fun, inventive and feminist, it's the Bend It Like Beckham of jazz films.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Urchin

Dir. Harris Dickinson
99 min

This impressive, award-winning debut as writer-director from actor Harris Dickinson is a probing portrait of a troubled street kid trying to get his life back on track before it's too late.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Orwell: 2+2=5

Dir. Raoul Peck
119 min

Oscar-nominated director Raoul Peck reimagines 1984 in this urgent essay on power, language, and control. With narration by Damian Lewis, it’s a chilling portrait of how Orwell’s warnings became our reality.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

Credits

Executive Producer

Daiji Horiuchi, Tsuyoshi Goroh, Shinichi Tago, Kazuo Nakanishi, Yumiko Masuda, Nobuo Kameyama, Riki Takeuchi, Junji Igarashi, Takayuki Suzuki, Misaki Kawamura,Osamu Nakanishi, Nobuo Komazawa

Producer

Ryoko Nozoe, Takuro Nagai, Shintaro Hori

Screenwriter

Naoko Ogigami

Cinematography

Hiroki Ando

Editor

Shinichi Fushima

Original Music

PASCALS

Art Director

Mayumi Tomita

Director

Naoko Ogigami headshot, Riverside Mukolitta director

Naoko Ogigami

Naoko Ogigami was born in Japan and studied film at the University of Southern California. Her directorial debut, Yoshino’s Barber Shop (2004), received a Special Mention at the Kinderfilmfest at the Berlin International Film Festival. Her fourth film, Glasses (2007), received the Manfred Salzgeber Award, also at the Berlinale. Her 2017 film Close-Knit received awards at different film festivals, including the Teddy Jury Award at the Berlinale. She wrote for the stop-motion animation series Rilakkuma and Kaoru, which premiered on Netflix in 2019.

Filmography: Yoshino’s Barber Shop (2003); Glasses (2007); Rent-a-Cat (2012); Close-Knit (2017)