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Super Happy Forever film image; man sitting on ledge in front of building and palm tree

Super Happy Forever

Panorama

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North American Premiere

In Kohei Igarashi’s haunting, mysterious film, Sano (Hiroshi Sano) and his friend Miyata (Yoshinori Miyata) return to the seaside town where Sano met his wife Nagi (Nairu Yamamoto) five years ago. Nagi is now deceased, and the trip is part of an attempt to exorcise Sano’s grief. Eventually, the director takes us back in time, showing the couple’s first meeting…

Kohei shoots in long takes, portraying the action in a cool, distanced manner that allows for contemplation even as the story remains engrossing. Sano and Nagi’s strange, felicitous first meeting is key to the film’s themes of chance, personality, and the strange and often cruel ways they intersect. Hiroshi Sano gives a fine performance, exuding dazed grief in the film’s opening section and altering his technique with the leap back to happier times. Super Happy Forever is a deceptively casual film: beneath the placid surface lies something dark and unnameable yet somehow recognizable.

 

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Director
Cast

Hiroshi Sano, Yoshinori Miyata, Nairu Yamamoto, Hoang Nhu Quynh

Credits
Country of Origin

Japan/France

Year

2024

Language

In Japanese with English subtitles

18+

At SFU Woodwards

19+

At Fifth Avenue

94 min
Cinemas of Asia Drama Romance
MLD Films, Nobo LLC

Book Tickets

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Credits & Director

Executive Producer

Kohei Igarashi, Kenshi Otaka, Misaki Kawamura, Satoshi Takata, Go Kitahara, Takashi Omatsu

Producer

Makoto Oki, Yusaku Emoto

Screenwriter

Kohei Igarashi, Koichi Kubodera

Cinematography

Wataru Takahashi

Editor

Keiko Okawa, Kohei Igarashi, Damien Manivel

Production Design

Masato Nunobe

Original Music

Daigo Sakuragi

Kohei Igarashi headshot; Super Happy Forever director

Kohei Igarashi 五十嵐耕平

Born in 1983 in Shizuoka Prefecture, Kohei Igarashi directed his first feature film Voice of Rain That Comes at Night (2008) while studying at Tokyo’s Zokei University and went on to win the Korean Critics’ Prize at Cinema Digital Seoul 2008. His second feature film Hold Your Breath Like a Lover (2014), his final work at the Graduate School of Cinema and New Media at the Tokyo University of the Arts, competed at the 67th Locarno International Film Festival. Takara, La nuit ou j’ai nagé (2017), co-directed with French filmmaker Damien Manivel, was selected at the 74th Venice International Film Festival. In 2023, he presented the short film Two of Us at the San Sebastian Film Festival, a sort of prequel to Super Happy Forever.

Filmography: Voice of Rain That Comes at Night (2008); Hold Your Breath Like a Lover (2014); Takara, La nuit ou j’ai nagé (2017)

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