TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH (TABI NO OWARI SEKAI NO HAJIMARI) World Cinema

Talent attending: Jason Gray (Producer), Eiko Mizuno (Producer)

In his most emotional work to date, J-horror pioneer Kiyoshi Kurosawa delivers a profoundly affecting account of displacement. A Japanese TV crew is shooting a travelogue in Uzbekistan. At the center of the all-male crew is on-camera host, singer and actress Yoko. While on the surface demure and cautious, a nuanced performance from former J-pop icon Atusko Maeda reveals Yoko’s conflicted interior existence, one brimming with suppressed ambitions and anxieties. Production difficulties and confrontations amid cultural and language barriers result in repeated failures, dead-end concepts and unusable footage. Beleaguered by a series of uncomfortable misunderstandings, Yoko is no longer able to summon the necessary enthusiasm and wanders the streets of the unfamiliar landscape alone, spiraling into alienation and loneliness, where fears of the unknown are all-consuming. –Malin Kan