Love Life to be released by BFI Distribution in the UK and Ireland
Kôji Fukada’s family drama, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival, will be in cinemas from 15 September 2023.
Love Life, Japanese writer-director Kôji Fukada’s beguiling, beautifully paced portrait of a family navigating the aftermath of a tragedy, has been acquired by BFI Distribution and will be released in the UK and Ireland in September.
Acquired from mk2 Films, Love Life had its world premiere at the 2022 Venice Film Festival in Competition (Best Film), which has been followed by other international film festival presentations including TIFF 2022 and the BFI London Film Festival 2022. Love Life will go on theatrical release in UK and Irish cinemas via BFI Distribution on 15 September 2023. At BFI Southbank, it will play alongside a major Yasujiro Ozu season running 1 September to 3 October; the two directors share a deep interest in the human experience.
Inspired by Japanese singer and musician Akiko Yano’s song ‘Love Life’, the film tells the story of Taeko (Fumino Kimura) and her husband Jiro (Kento Nagayama) who are living a peaceful existence with her young son Keita (Tetta Shimada), when a tragic accident brings the boy’s long-lost father, Park (Atom Sunada), back into Taeko’s life. To cope with the pain and guilt she feels after the accident, Taeko throws herself into helping this deaf and homeless man for whom she has a strong sense of responsibility.
Kôji Fukada powerfully uses sign language in the film and has said of this choice that “I don’t have to come up with reasons to have hearing people in my films, so it would be unfair to ask for a reason to have a deaf person. Hopefully, this film will be a step towards this becoming the norm, where we don’t demand a special reason to have deaf people in films. That would be a great innovation to come out of this.”
Fukada, born in 1980 in Tokyo, is best known for Au Revoir L’été (Goodbye Summer) which he made in 2013 and Harmonium, which won the Jury Award in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes 2016. He was awarded Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France in 2018. As well as filmmaking, he is an activist, campaigning for better opportunities for young directors in Japan and the creation of an organisation like the CNC in France (National Centre for Cinema and the Moving Image) to support them.
Love Life is produced by Yasuhiko Hattori, Masa Sawada and Yuko Kameda. It is a Nagoya Broadcasting Network/Chipangu/Comme des Cinémas co-production.
Julie Pearce, BFI Head of Distribution, said “This tragic, tangled, but at times, comic melodrama feels like a major breakthrough for Fukada. The beautiful final act is worth the price of a ticket alone and we are very proud to be bringing it to UK audiences.”
Quentin Bohanna, International Sales, mk2 Films, said “We are honoured to have found such a wonderful UK home as BFI Distribution to bring Kôji Fukada’s powerful and heartfelt drama to audiences.”