Untamagiru

Tsuru is a roving broadcaster and collector of singing-and-dancing DNA samples, kept in her lunchbox. One day she finds an abandoned script (its penniless author has fled to Taiwan in search of a woman) and so she moves into the writer's house and sets about staging it as a play.

1979 film

The long-awaited latest feature from Okinawa’s preeminent filmmaker Go Takamine (Untamagiru) is a free-wheeling impressionistic work set in a fantastical realm informed by reality, memories, indigenous folklore and theater. X years after the oft-referenced but never elaborated-upon “Shima pshoo” incident, aging Tarugani and Papajo are best friends who live in Patai Village, where those who failed to die continue to exist. When the two find themselves framed as thieves who stole an illegal substance from the local store, they set out on the road, chased by three dripping wet mysterious women. An utterly unconventional visceral feast. -JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film

Go Takamine's first theatrical feature is a pioneering work of Okinawan cinema, filmed almost entirely in Okinawan dialect. Taking place shortly before the resumption of Japanese sovereignty over Okinawa, Takamine’s film tacitly addresses the island prefecture's complicated history of occupation and feelings of dislocation through the story of a small community and its preparations for a wedding between a local girl and a Japanese teacher. On the periphery of these events is Reishu (Kaoru Kobayashi), who quits his job on a US military base and uses the extra time to catch snakes and play with ants – and get the bride-to-be pregnant. Takamine’s leisurely-paced film is full of uniquely Okinawan touches that mix in aspects of the island's folklore, accompanied by Haruomi Hosono’s spare and evocative score.