''Kotoko'' is a 2011

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

ese film by director

Shinya Tsukamoto is a Japanese people, Japanese filmmaker, film producer, screenwriter, Film editing, editor, Film director, director, cinematographer, art director, production designer and actor. With a considerable cult following both domestically and abroad ...

. It is based on an original story by

J-pop J-pop ( ja, ジェイポップ, ''jeipoppu''; often stylized as J-POP; an abbreviated form of "Japanese popular music"), natively also known simply as , is the name for a form of popular music that entered the musical mainstream of Japan in the 1 ...

artist

Cocco is a female Japanese pop / folk rock singer. Early life Cocco went to many ballet auditions, hoping to become a professional ballerina. She went to singing auditions to earn the traveling expenses for a ballet audition in Tokyo. She did not ...

, who stars in the film alongside Tsukamoto.

Plot

Suffering from double vision, a single mother (Cocco) tries to take care of her baby in the grip of terrifying hallucinations. Experiencing a nervous breakdown, she is deemed unfit to take care of her child and has it taken away from her. The only respite the mother has from her visions is when she sings. An award-winning novelist (Tsukamoto) overhears her singing whilst riding the bus and the pair subsequently develop a volatile relationship.

Cast

as Kotoko *

as Seitaro Tanaka

Release

''Kotoko'' premiered at the 68th

Venice International Film Festival The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival ( it, Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica della Biennale di Venezia, "International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art of the Venice Biennale") is an annual film festival he ...

where it won the Best Film award in the festival's Orizzonti section, the first Japanese film to do so. The film was picked up for distribution in the UK by

Third Window Films Third Window Films is a UK-based distributor of movies from East Asia founded in 2005. They have provided distribution for numerous award-winning films, such as ''Oasis'' (Winner of Marcello Mastroianni Award, FIPRESCI Prize Signis Award and Specia ...

and was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on October 8, 2012.

References

External links

* *
''Kotoko'' review
a
subtitledonline.com
2011 films Japanese drama films Films directed by Shinya Tsukamoto Films scored by Chu Ishikawa 2011 drama films 2010s Japanese films 2010s Japanese-language films {{2010s-Japan-film-stub