Shotengai (Canada, 2020)
Shotengai explores Takaharu's role in a future society enhanced by technological infrastructures - a story about space, city and technology. In the year 2100, Takaharu lives in a modest middle house on a shotengai, somewhere in a dense Japanese city. The story reflects his everyday actions as a maintenance worker for a large company's code database. Over the years, Takaharu has become increasingly jaded, and the scraps of memory that narrate the film provide information about his former job as a code hacker on the black market.
“A recollection of futures past from familiar works of genre fiction, the impressive combination of digital animation and live-action in Shotengai builds a salient world that is connected through living cables and sentient lights. Prophecy rooted in a tactility and actuality, the films builds outwards from the micro to the macro in a story that sheds light on working class placement within science-fiction. There is an impeccable craftsmanship that helps build a rugged sense of scope whilst retaining a certain sensitivity all the same.”
Directed by: Michael Yoshimura
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