16th New York Asian Film Festival

Jun 30 - Jul 16, 2017

FilmsGuestsSchedule & Tickets

Photo: © 2017 Close-Knit Film Partners

U.S. Premiere

Close-Knit

彼らが本気で編むときは、

When 11-year-old Tomo’s irresponsible single mother leaves her on her own for the umpteenth time she turns to Uncle Makio to look after her. Makio’s pretty girlfriend Rinko proves an excellent surrogate mother and the three form an indelible bound, but not without complications: Rinko is transgender. Ogigami Naoko has defined her own distinct voice with several maverick feature films that focus on women affirming their raison d’etre (Kamome Diner, Glasses, Rent-a-Cat). Utilizing an amusingly quirky and often bittersweet mode of storytelling, the astute director creates unique spaces that offer a respite from the irritations of daily life to both her film’s characters and audiences. Close-Knit finds her taking things to a new level: What if that woman was a man? The emergence of the transgender identity is presented in a decidedly objective and novel form, underlined perfectly in a beat-perfect portrayal by uber-popular pretty boy idol Ikuta Toma.

Director: Ogigami Naoko
Cast: Kakihara Rinka, Kiritani Kenta, Ikuta Toma
Languages: Japanese with English subtitles
2017; 127 min.; DCP

SCHEDULE:

Saturday July 8, 8:00pm
Film Society of Lincoln Center

Q&A with director Ogigami Naoko

Ogigami Naoko
荻上直子

After graduating from Chiba University's Image Science program in 1994, Ogigami Naoko studied film at the University of Southern California, returning to Japan in 2000. She directed two short films, Ayako (1999), shot in the US, and Hoshino-kun, Yumino-kun (2001). The latter won the PIA Festival Scholarship Award, which led to the festival financing and producing her first feature, Yoshino's Barber Shop (2004). The light comedy is about a middle-aged woman in a small town who cuts boys' hair identically until a transfer student with bleached hair arrives. The film established a recurring theme in her work: an outsider disrupting a community by shining a light on its cultural stereotypes. Her subsequent films include Kamome Diner (2006), about a middle-aged Japanese woman who opens a diner in Helsinki, and Glasses (2007) about a university professor vacationing on an island full of eccentrics. Her latest film, Close-Knit, focuses on another outsider, a transgender.