RENOIR

A Young Girl Discovers the Healing Power of the Imagination

Venue(s): Shinjuku Piccadilly & Osaka Station City Cinema
Shinjuku Piccadilly: July 11, 2025 to July 17, 2025, Osaka Station City Cinema: July 13 and 14, 2025
Language: Japanese, English with English, Japanese subtitles
Official website: happinet-phantom.com/renoir/
Theater website: www.smt-cinema.com/sp/site/shinjuku/
Theater website: www.osakastationcitycinema.com/site/oscc/
Trailer: https://bit.ly/44wRlv8
Tariff: Please check on the theater site.
Advance tickets: Please check on the theater site.
Talk event: Please check on the theater site.

Title: ルノワール (runowaaru)
Director: Chie Hayakawa (早川千絵)
Duration: 122 min

A short 3 years after receiving a Camera d'Or Special Mention at the Cannes Film Festival with her debut feature, Plan 75, director Chie Hayakawa was back on the Croisette in May with Renoir. This time, she had a coveted Competition slot, putting her in contention for the Palme d’Or. Fans of understated, humanist cinema responded immediately to the emotionally resonant tale about a young girl coping with the quiet collapse of her family. While the film confirms Hayakawa as one of Japan’s most gifted new storytellers, her 11-year-old star, Yui Suzuki, was singled out at Cannes as one of the “10 Talents to Watch.” For a limited time, audiences in Tokyo and Osaka will now have a chance to see Renoir with English subtitles.

Set in late 1980s Tokyo, during the final years of the bubble economy, the film follows Fuki Okita (Suzuki), a precocious 11-year-old whose father, Keiji (Lily Franky), is battling terminal cancer. Fuki’s mother, Utako (Hikari Ishida), must work full time as well as care for Keiji, leaving her daughter without much adult supervision. Fortunately, Fuki is an independent-minded girl, and finds a great number of interests to pursue — telepathy, hypnotism, divining, voodoo and spells, the usual.

But understandably, she thirsts for human connections, and while these seem both tenuous (a rich classmate who moves to another town, children she meets at summer camp) and potentially permanent (her English teacher, who is intensely empathetic), Fuki is essentially on her own. As her fears of impending loss begin to loom larger, she turns further inward, drawing on her rich imagination to protect and then to heal her.

Renoir is a coproduction between 6 countries — Japan, France, Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia and Qatar — spearheaded by Japan-based producers Eiko Mizuno-Gray and Jason Gray, who also worked with Hayakawa on Plan 75. While it feels rooted in Japanese experience, the experience of viewing it is universally resonant. As the production notes so aptly put it, “Renoir is about what happens when words fail, when adults can’t comfort, and when a child must carry the emotional weight of an entire household.”

Shinjuku Piccadilly

Osaka Station City Cinema