IN MEMORY OF FILM FIGURES WE LOST IN 2023-2024: Kenji Fukuma

Jazz Hearts, Rock Souls, Tokyo Nights

Venue(s): National Film Archive of Japan
Suddenly Arriving: Thu, Feb 26 — 7:00 PM Wed, Mar 11 — 3:00 PM
Language: Japanese with English subtitles
Official website: www.nfaj.go.jp/english/film-program/yukeru202512/
Theater website: www.nfaj.go.jp/film-program/yukeru202512/
Theater website: www.nfaj.go.jp/english/visit/access/
Theater website: www.nfaj.go.jp/english/
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/embed/fXtLcCSboYQ
Tariff: General: ¥520, Student/Senior: ¥310
Advance tickets: https://www.e-tix.jp/nfaj/en/

Title: 逝ける映画人を偲んで 2023-2024 (Yukeru Eigajin wo Shinonde 2023-2024)
Director: Kenji Fukuma (福間健二)

The National Film Archive of Japan (NFAJ) continues its tribute to important Japanese film figures who died recently, focusing on a range of contributors, from writers, directors and actors to art directors, composers and others. The annual series is always wide ranging and too rarely features English-subbed films. This year, there is only one subtitled work among several dozen, but as always, we encourage you to explore the full lineup, which is filled with gems (like Nagisa Oshima’s Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, included because of its star and soundtrack maestro, Ryuichi Sakamoto).

Suddenly Arriving/急にたどりついてしまう
90min, 35mm, Color and B&W, English subs, 2012

Director: Kenji Fukuma, 福間健二 [March 10, 1949 - April 26, 2023]
February 26 (Thu), 2026 19:00
March 11 (Wed), 2026 15:00

Poet, critic, translator, educator and filmmaker Kenji Fukuma (1949-2023) was a cinema fan from his early teens and frequented Koji Wakamatsu’s film sets during high school, before making independent films in his university years. In 1969, he wrote and starred in Wakamatsu’s Confessions of a Rapist. He imbues his debut feature, Suddenly Arriving (1995) with a literary sensibility.

Set in the quiet suburbs of Tokyo, the film is a tender, offbeat portrait of youth at the moment it begins to slip away, capturing the fragile emotional rhythms of people drifting toward adulthood without quite realizing it.

The film centers on Tachibana (Takeshi Ito), a drifter who’s worked in a sausage shop for several years without forging any real relationships. His days are unremarkable, his nights are devoted to long walks, and his youth is rapidly fading. But then he finds himself drawn to a mysterious young woman, Risa (Tomoko Matsui) who suddenly enters his orbit. He moves through life like jazz; she vibrates with the raw energy of rock. Their encounter unsettles not only each other, but the loose constellation of friends and acquaintances around them, all unknowingly standing at their own personal crossroads.

As she waits for Tachibana to make up his mind, Risa flirts with the idea of going back to her old boyfriend, Teruo (Taiyo Kitakaze), a yakuza-lite type who suggests that he wants her back. But it is Ito’s melancholy presence that anchors the film’s emotional weight, as he embodies a generation suspended between possibility and resignation.

As one critic put it upon the film’s US release: “[Fukuma’s] more concerned with the minute lyricism of the banal — such as Teruo checking out his pompadour in a reflective car window — than with plot resolution.” Shot with gentle observation by cinematographer Yasumasa Konishi, Suddenly Arriving remains a quietly affecting time capsule of 1990s Japanese indie cinema.

National Film Archive of Japan