Miiku Sakanishi reflects on memory, family, and photography in his quiet and tender drama Memorizu.
Yuta (Tasuku Emoto) leaves his wife Yuki (Moeka Hoshi) and their young daughter behind in Tokyo and heads to the countryside to help his father-in-law Makoto (Issey Ogata) at his photo studio, while he is recovering from a leg injury.
Befitting a film about photography, it offers exquisite visuals of landscapes, places, and people that are not always connected by a conventional narrative thread. The piano-driven score by Oudai Kojima is used sparsely, but memorably, enhancing the scenes it accompanies. Emoto and Ogata stand out among a cast that delivers uniformly natural performances. Sakanishi crafts a lyrical film that leaves you with renewed appreciation for ordinary life.
He won the Best New Narrative Director Award at the 2026 Tribeca Festival.
