Death of a Japanese Salesman - Film Screening
VIEW EVENT DETAILSCiti Series on Asian Arts and Culture
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Death of a Japanese Salesman
Dir. SUNADA Mami. 2011. 90 min. Color. HDCAM.
In Japanese with English subtitles.
Recently retired from a company after some 40 years of service, Sunada Tomoaki, father of filmmaker Sunada Mami, is diagnosed with terminal cancer and only has a few months left to live. True to his pragmatic core, Sunada sets out to accomplish a list of tasks before his final departure: playing with his grandchildren, planning his own funeral, saying “I love you” to his wife, among others. In a voice over, using words taken from her father’s diary, filmmaker Sunada speaks tenderly in first person as the elder Sunada. Produced by the acclaimed director Kore-eda Hirokazu (Still Walking, Nobody Knows), the documentary, at once mournful and celebratory, is a moving tribute to the filmmaker’s father. (A Bitters End, Inc. film.)
One of Ten Best Japanese Films of 2011 — The Japan Times
Second Prize, Muhr AsiaAfrica Documentary, Dubai International Film Festival
Certificate of Merit, Chicago International Film Festival
“The film provides an unflinching, unsentimental view of the dying process” — Mark Schilling, The Japan Times
Check out a short interview with filmmaker Sunada Mami here.
About the Director
SUNADA Mami was born in Tokyo in 1978. She studied documentary at Keio University. Death of a Japanese Salesman is her directorial debut. Before this film, she worked as assistant to acclaimed director Kore-eda Hirokazu (Still Walking, 2008; Air Doll, 2009).
Watch a trailer:
This program is part of Citi Series on Asian Arts and Culture. This program is supported, in part, by the Japan Foundation and the New York State Council on the Arts.