The new film from Japanese director Naomi Kawase (Embracing, The Mourning Forest) that stars Vicky Krieps (Corsage, The Dead Don’t Hurt, Hot Milk) has been added to the competition lineup of the 78th edition of the Locarno Film Festival.
Yakushima’s Illusion (L’Illusion de Yakushima) is a French, Japanese, Luxembourgish, and Belgian co-production.
Past plot descriptions of the movie have said that it tells the story of Corry, a French heart transplants department coordinator who gets sent to a hospital in Japan to help improve its transplants department given that organ transplants are still largely taboo. She lives with a photographer, Jin, who is originally from the island of Yakushima in the south of Japan.
“When I make a movie, I follow an invisible thread – one woven into the larger tapestry of dreams,” said Krieps. “This particular thread led me deep into the ancient forests of Yakushima and back into the gentle heart of childhood.” Concluded the star: “I walked the delicate line between ghosts and reality, drawn by the mystery of love.”
The film, which according to IMDb also stars Kan’ichirô Satô, will have its world premiere in Locarno on Friday, Aug. 15, festival organizers said on Tuesday. Krieps is also listed as an executive producer on IMDb.
“Thus bringing the total films in the Concorso Internazionale to 18, Kawase’s latest work will join the new films by Abbas Fahdel, Abdellatif Kechiche, Alexandre Koberidze, Ben Rivers, Dane Komljen, Elsa Kremser and Levin Peter, Fabrice Aragno, Hana Jušić, Ivana Mladenović, Janicke Askevold, Julian Radlmaier, Kamal Aljafari, Maureen Fazendeiro, Radu Jude, Rosanne Pel, Sho Miyake, Valentina and Nicole Bertani,” the Locarno festival said. All selected films will compete for the festival’s top honor, the Pardo d’Oro, or Golden Leopard, which will this year be awarded by the competition jury led by Cambodian auteur Rithy Panh.
The 78th edition of the Swiss film fest takes place Aug. 6-16.