World Premiere
Keiko Tsuruoka’s wistful film features Kazunari Yanagitani as Kazu, an actor visiting his hometown, where he will have to confess a sad secret to his family. Saikai is a seaside municipality in Nagasaki prefecture — a place with charm, nice scenery, and not much going on. For Kazu, it’s a nice contrast with Tokyo, where he has gone to make his living. His family and his old community welcome his return visit, and he is loath to disappoint them, but the truth about his upcoming marriage will have to be told…
Serving quadruple duty as writer, director, cinematographer, and editor, Tsuruoka (Tsugaru Lacquer Girl, VIFF 2023) maintains a breezy, casual tone throughout her film, though she’s equally adept at portraying moments of poignancy. Kazu is a man for whom a mellow exterior conceals depths of feeling, and his internal struggle is relatable and moving. Saikai Paradise is a graceful, winning film about the small, quiet moments that make up so much of our lives.
Oct 9 & 11: Q&A
Supported by
Community Partner
Kazunari Yanagitani, Misaki Kinoshita, Hiroki Uehara, Hiroyuki Nagami, Shota Tashima, Mayumi Yanagitani
Japan
2025
In Japanese with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Credits & Director
Screenwriter
Keiko Tsuruoka
Cinematography
Keiko Tsuruoka
Editor
Keiko Tsuruoka
Original Music
Hiroki Nakano
Keiko Tsuruoka 鶴岡慧子
Keiko Tsuruoka began making films while attending Rikkyo University, and she studied at Tokyo University of the Arts Graduate School under Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Her first feature, The Town of Whales (2012), screened at the Busan International Film Festival and Berlinale, among others, and her film Tsugaru Lacquer Girl (2023) won the Soleil d’Or at the 2023 Kinotayo Contemporary Japanese Film Festival in Paris. She is currently an associate professor of filmmaking at Kobe Design University.
Filmography: The Town of Whales (2012); My First Love (2013); A Light in the Distance (2014); Lingering Memories (2014); Makuko (2019); Tsugaru Laquer Girl (2023)
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Caravaggio
In the latest from Exhibition on Screen, co-directors David Bickerstaff and Phil Grabsky shed light not only on Caravaggio's paintings, but his life, often kept half-hidden in the same chiaroscuro tones he shaded his masterpieces with.
Train Dreams
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.
Wisdom of Happiness
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.
Köln 75
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.
La Belle at the Movies + Apostles of Cinema
Cecilia Zoppelletto's lyrical documentary examines the fate of cinephilia in Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo's capital city, currently without a single operating cinema. + Apostles of Cinema (Tanzania, 17 min)