JAPAN HOUSE Los Angeles, in partnership with the American Cinematheque, is proud to present an in-person retrospective celebrating acclaimed filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda. A leading voice in contemporary Japanese cinema, Kore-eda is known for his deeply humanistic films that explore family, memory, and the complexity of human relationships. With an elegant visual style and naturalistic approach to performance, his work has earned international acclaim, including the Palme d’Or at Cannes for SHOPLIFTERS. This retrospective highlights some of his most essential works and celebrates his newest critically acclaimed television series, ASURA.
Kore-eda’s cinema asks essential questions about belonging, connection, and the social structures that both sustain and constrain us, all while maintaining a deep compassion for his characters’ struggles and triumphs. In STILL WALKING, Kore-eda examines the complex familial dynamics that accompany themes of grief, as he delicately interrogates the traditional family structure by normalizing remarriage and providing space for his characters, across various generations, to discuss the evolution of such values in contemporary Japanese society. Over the past three decades, Kore-eda has established himself as one of world cinema’s most consistently insightful observers of modern Japanese society. Working across documentary and fiction, he has crafted intimate narratives which reveal emotional truths with quiet power and precision. With his debut narrative feature, AFTER LIFE, he formally emulated the documentary approach to filmmaking, allowing subject-protagonists to reflect on their fictional lives, culminating in a profound meditation on the power of the camera in preserving human life and individual memory.
Often focusing on unconventional family structures and the spaces between people, his contemplative films stitch together observed moments of everyday life that accumulate into profound emotional experiences. His most seminal idea regarding unconventional family structures culminates with SHOPLIFTERS through a presentation of family not being defined by blood relations. This was first explored with LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON. With such films, Kore-eda has cinematically responded to Yasujiro Ozu’s portrayal of traditional familial bonds by normalizing adoptive parent-child relationships and reaffirming what we consider true familial dynamics. In a similar vein, NOBODY KNOWS shows the audience a representation of unconventional motherhood when a young adolescent girl fills the role of the mother for her younger siblings. This retrospective offers a rare opportunity to experience Kore-eda’s works on the big screen and gain insight into his artistic process through in-person conversations with the filmmaker himself.
All films are in Japanese with English subtitles.
Schedule
Saturday, May 10, 2025
Afternoon
This screening includes a special presentation of one episode from Kore-eda’s recently-released Netflix television series ASURA. A live Q&A featuring Dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda will be held in between the two screenings.
STILL WALKING (2008)
ASURA (2025)
Time
1:00 PM – 4:30 PM (Doors open at 12:00 PM)
Location
Egyptian Theatre
Address
6712 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90028
Dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda, 114 Minutes, IFC Films, Japan
Fifteen years ago, Ryo’s older brother Junpei died while rescuing a boy from drowning. On the anniversary of his death, Ryo and his sister, each with their own families in tow, have made the trip to visit their elderly parents, and the years of tension kept barely below the surface finally threaten to run over during their 24-hour stay.
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From everyday domestic squabbles over sizzling tempura in the kitchen to the elegant graveside ritual performed for Junpei, Kore-eda shows complete mastery of his characters, exposing bit by bit in real time both the grievances that drive them apart and the love that holds them together.
Dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda, 57 Minutes, Netflix, Japan
In 1979 Tokyo, four distinct sisters uncover their aging father’s affair, causing their happy facades and bottled-up emotions to slowly unravel. Episode 1 Synopsis: One wintry morning, the usually reserved Takiko calls her three sisters for a meeting, sharing shocking news about their father’s affair.
Evening
AFTER LIFE (1998)
Time
7:00 PM – 9:30 PM (Doors open at 6:00 PM)
Location
Egyptian Theatre
Address
6712 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90028
Dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda, 119 minutes, Janus Films, Japan
If you could choose only one memory to hold on to for eternity, what would it be? That’s the question at the heart of Hirokazu Kore-eda’s revelatory international breakthrough, a bittersweet fantasia in which the recently deceased find themselves in a limbo realm where they must select a single cherished moment from their life to be recreated on film for them to take into the next world.
Sunday, May 11, 2025
Please note that the afternoon and evening venues are different.
Afternoon
SHOPLIFTERS (2018)
Followed by Q&A with Dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda
Time
2:00 PM – 4:40 PM (Doors open at 1:00 PM)
Location
Egyptian Theatre
Address
6712 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90028
Dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda, 121 minutes, Magnolia Pictures, Japan
On the margins of Tokyo, a dysfunctional band of outsiders are united by fierce loyalty, a penchant for petty theft and playful grifting. When the young son is arrested, secrets are exposed that upend their tenuous, below-the-radar existence and test their quietly radical belief that it is love—not blood—that defines a family.
Evening
A live Q&A featuring Dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda will be held in between the two screenings.
NOBODY KNOWS (2004)
LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON (2013)
Time
7:00 PM – 12:30 AM (Doors open at 6:00 PM)
Location
Aero Theatre
Address
1328 Montana Ave, Santa Monica, CA 90403
Dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda, 141 Minutes, IFC Films, Japan
Four siblings live happily with their mother in a small apartment in Tokyo. The children all have different fathers. They have never been to school. The very existence of three of them has been hidden from the landlord. One day, the mother leaves behind a little money and a note, asking her 12-year-old boy to look after the others. And so, begins the children’s odyssey, a journey nobody knows.
Dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda, 121 Minutes, IFC Films, Japan
Following an unexpected phone call, affluent architect Ryota and his wife, Midori, learn that their six-year-old son, Keita, was switched at the hospital and is not their biological child. Seeing Midori’s devotion to Keita even after the news and observing the rough yet caring family that has raised his natural son for the last six years, Ryota begins to question his own values on …
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fatherhood as he must choose between ‘nature’ and ‘nurture,’ a decision that will change their lives forever.
About the Filmmaker
Hirokazu Kore-eda
Born 1962 in Tokyo, Japan. After graduating from Waseda University in 1987, Kore-eda joined TV Man Union where he directed several prize-winning documentary programs. In 2011, he launched his production company BUN-BUKU.
In 1995, his directorial debut, Maborosi, based on the original novel written by Miyamoto Teru, won the …
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52nd Venice International Film Festival’s Golden Osella. After Life (1998), distributed in over 30 countries, brought Kore-eda international acclaim. In 2001, Distance was selected in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival, and with his fourth work Nobody Knows (2004), Yagira Yuya garnered much attention for becoming the youngest person to ever receive the Cannes Film Festival’s Best Actor Award. In 2006, Hana, a film centered on vengeance, became his first attempt at a period piece. In 2008, he presented the family drama Still Walking, which reflected his own personal experiences, and received high praise from around the world. In 2009, Air Doll was world premiered in Un Certain Regard at the 62nd Cannes Film Festival and was widely praised for marking a new frontier in its depiction of a sensual love fantasy. In 2011, I Wish won the Best Screenplay Award at the 59th San Sebastian International Film Festival. In 2012, he made his TV directorial debut with the series Going Home.
His feature film Like Father, Like Son (2013), won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, received the audience awards at San Sebastian, Vancouver, and Sao Paulo International Film Festivals and broke the box office record of his past films in many territories. In 2015, Our Little Sister premiered in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival, and received five awards including Best Film and Best Director at the Japan Academy Prize, as well as the Jury Prize at the San Sebastian Film Festival. In 2016, After the Storm premiered in Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2017, The Third Murder premiered In Competition at the 52nd Venice International Film Festival. In 2018, Shoplifters won the Palme d’Or at the 71st Cannes Film Festival, the Best Foreign Film at the 11th Césars, and many other awards, as well as being nominated for the 91st Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. In 2019, his first feature shot outside Japan, The Truth with two French film legends, Catherine Deneuve and Juliette Binoche, is the opening film in Competition of the 76th Venice International Film Festival. In 2022, his first Korean film Broker won the Ecumenical Jury Prize and Song Kang-Ho the Best Actor Award, the first award for a Korean actor, at the 75th Cannes Film Festival. In 2023, his first-ever Netflix series The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House was released worldwide, and his latest feature Monster won the Queer Palme and writer Yuji Sakamoto the Best Screenplay Award, at the 76th Cannes Film Festival. In 2025, he adapted and directed the Netflix series Asura, a remake of Kuniko Mukoda’s iconic home drama, now available worldwide and featuring Rie Miyazawa, Machiko Ono, Yu Aoi, and Suzu Hirose.
Co-Presented by
