A disillusioned office worker finds freedom and a new sense of self after assuming her missing colleague's identity on a dating app, only to find it comes at the cost of much more.
A young woman spends a day in some non-place between town and countryside, has random encounters and watches stones skip over the surface of the river. Tatsunari Ota’s film explores a world without productivity and finds joy in idle time and playfulness.
Haru, a bookstore clerk, talks to Yukiko pretending to ask for directions. Haru has detected deep sorrow on Yukiko's face. Meanwhile, Haru has been spending days following Tsuyoshi discretely and checking his expressions.
As the cherry blossoms bloom in splendor during springtime, Ibuki, an art student living in Tokyo, visits Odawara city with her father. This is their first trip together since Ibuki left home. Odawara was once a memorable place she had visited with her late mother. As father and daughter explore Odawara, they gradually open up to each other. Ibuki carries a secret box in her hands.
Sanae (An Ogawa) is a high school girl preparing to take university entrance exams. She isn't very good at socializing. She wants to hurry up and become an adult, but it isn't going very well. Over summer vacation, Sanae's sister comes home from college in Tokyo, and her parents decide to hire a housekeeper. Yusuke (Hoshi Ishida), is rough around the edges and a little scary. The people close to him find him a mystery. As Sanae gets to know him, she begins to feel they have something in common. A journey through sweet love and bitter memories.
This is the question posited by director Nakamura Yutaro at the start of his latest film, a series of vignettes that bleed into each other. Memories? dreams? Whatever they are, they belong to highschooler Hikari who, along with a friend named Yujiro, get involved with an emotionally unstable man named Takaya. Flash-forward a decade or so and they are all 20-somethings bumbling around on New Year’s Eve night. Hikari has picked up an admirer, Kotaro, while Takaya is shacked up with a young woman named Anzu. A tumultuous night together leads to a quarrel and a truly bizarre New Year’s Day. It’s not a straightforward experience as we surf through these experiences and question whether they are imagined but the feeling of airy freedom and endless possibilities at the end is pleasant.
21st Century Girl is an omnibus feature that is of the girls, by the girls and for the girls. The work of 15 women directors under the age of 30, each of whom contributed an 8-minute film, the package highlights a range of genres, visions and thematic concerns.