The Zen Diary

In the organizer's words:

Director: NAKAE Yûji
2022, 111 minutes, OVD, DCP

Tsutomu lives alone in the mountains, writes essays and stories and cooks with home-grown vegetables and mushrooms that he collects in the wild. His routine life is occasionally interrupted by his editor Machiko. Her visits bring him great joy: she loves to eat and he loves to cook for her. By preparing seasonal meals, Tsutomu can feel the flow of the seasons and seems content with his quiet life. But he still can't let go of the loss of his wife. Since her death 13 years ago, he has not managed to bury her ashes. All in good time.

In this cooking movie, the seasons determine what's on the table - and Tsutomu's emotional life is also determined by the seasons. (Text: Film Kino Text)

Movie series
It's better together!
New Japanese films

Nowadays, there are many forms of loneliness and being alone.

Some people deliberately withdraw from life in the community, others are suddenly alone due to external circumstances such as separation or bereavement and have to reorient themselves.

The series of eight films, which were made between 2019 and 2022, approaches the topic from different perspectives that are not only thought-provoking but also entertaining. The series kicks off with a quirky science fiction comedy in which a young woman struggles with her hated father, whose body has just died for a short time, followed by a sensitive family drama about a single widower. In a cooking film, the seasons determine the emotional life of a single senior citizen and a visually stunning anime tells the adventure-fantasy story of a girl who is neglected by her mother. In another anime, an art student encounters heroes and demons in her deceased grandmother's house and in a refreshing feature film, a couple of friends who have problems at school realize a shared dream. The gloomy vision of an ageing society strikes a serious note. The series is rounded off with a literary adaptation about a lonely older woman who experiences a special kind of cheering up.

Price information:

Admission free