Murayama Kaita, a Japanese painter, novelist and poet died in 1919 at the age of 22, leaving behind an impressive and time-defying body of work. In his most recent film, Sato Hisayasu offers a surreal, time-crossing, meta-layered essay on the artist, his originality and his legacy. Dear Kaita Ablaze brings together a young woman Azami obsessed with Murayama's painting, a young man Saku, who can hear unusual frequencies and claims to be Murayama or his spiritual imprint and a quartet of young performers with psychic abilities. They bond over Murayama’s work which they recreate in performative dance while driving to a mysterious cave called Agartha. Sato Hisayasu (The Eye's Dream, Muscle, The Bedroom), renowned for his pinku and exploration of madness and lust, returns to IFFR. Dear Kaita Ablaze is hyper-dense, obsessive and driven, effortlessly mashing surrealism with sci-fi and mysticism, layering seemingly unrelated events and encounters to bring them together in a monumental climax. – kijA
井浦新,罗宾·薇格特,国村隼,丝科特·史密斯,藤谷文子,斯蒂芬妮·埃尔南德斯,戈雅·罗伯斯,邓肯·维扎因,路易斯·乔斯·洛佩斯,加布里埃尔·克拉克,斯科特·麦考利,杰夫·梅德利,Marisilda Garcia,珍娜·西拉利 ,George De Vries,岩松了,Gerald Penn,Cara Wilder,Rob Story,Zac Thomas