With: Hiroshi Abe (Ryota Shinoda), Yoko Maki (Kyoko Shiraishi), Taiyo Yoshizawa (Shingo Shiraishi), Kirin Kiki (Yoshiko Shinoda)
Director/Screenplay/Editor: Kore-eda Hirokazu 
Producer: Kaoru Matsuzaki, Akihiko Yose, Hijiri Taguchi
Production co: Aoi Pro
Photography: Yutaka Yamazaki, Eiji Oshita
Music: Hanaregumi
REVIEWS

This characteristically worldly, affectionate and wryly amusing family drama was the 2016 Cannes entry from NZIFF’s favourite Japanese director, Kore-eda Hirokazu.  It centres on handsome, charming Ryoto (Abe Hiroshi), a formerly successful novelist who pines for his ex-wife, the pretty Kyoko (Maki Yoko) and his 12-year-old son Shingo (TV actor Yoshizawa Taiyo).  Working as a private detective to support a serious gambling habit, he seems an unlikely prospect for re-marriage, but when they are stranded together at his mother’s home during a typhoon, he sees a chance to reunite.

“A young divorced dad tries to get back into the good graces of his ex-wife and son in After the Storm, a classic Japanese family drama of gentle persuasion and staggering simplicity from Kore-eda Hirokazu.  As sweet as a ripe cherry at first glance, it has a rocky pit, as viewers who bite deeply will find out…  This bittersweet peek into the human comedy has a more subtle charm than flashier films like the director’s child-swapping fable Like Father, Like Son but the filmmaking is so exquisite and the acting so calibrated it sticks with you.”

— Deborah Young, Hollywood Reporter

“Kore-eda’s love for his characters, his ability to imbue an exchange or glance with warmth and humor, keeps us watching.  You can lose yourself in his films – wondering what’s around every corner, and what’s going on in the mind of even the most minor of characters…  He remains one of the best filmmakers the world has.”

— Bilge Ebiri, Village Voice
FILM SOCIETY SCREENINGS

Canterbury
Monday, 7 May, 7:30pm

Carterton
Friday, 1 June, 7:30pm

Timaru
Tuesday, 12 June, 7:00pm

Tauranga
Wednesday, 20 June, 6:15pm

Dunedin
Wednesday, 11 July, 7:30pm

Queenstown
Tuesday, 28 August, 8:15pm

Waitati
Tuesday, 9 October, 8:00pm

Whanganui
Monday, 29 October, 7:00pm

Palmerston North
Monday, 5 November, 6:00pm
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Wellington
Monday, 19 November, 6:15pm
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