18/04/2025 - The Japanese writer-director returns to the Croisette with her sophomore feature, an emotional coming-of-age tale set in late-1980s Tokyo

Chie Hayakawa heads back to the Cannes Film Festival (see the news) with her sophomore feature, Renoir, billed as a poignant coming-of-age film about resilience and imagination set in Tokyo in 1987. The Japanese writer-director last travelled to Cannes with her acclaimed debut feature, Plan 75 [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Chie Hayakawa
film profile], which premiered in the 2022 Un Certain Regard strand and won the Caméra d’Or Special Mention for Best First Feature; the film was also Japan’s official submission to the Oscars. Her thesis short, Niagara, also screened at Cannes in 2014, making her three for three at the prestigious French festival. She is now set to make waves with her first movie in the main competition.

Renoir centres on Fuki (Yui Suzuki), a quirky 11-year-old girl navigating adolescence while her father, Keiji (Lily Franky), battles cancer and her mother, Utako (Hikari Ishida), struggles with work-related stress. This combination of circumstances leads Fuki to rely heavily on her imagination to cope as she becomes more psychologically detached from her home environment. Ayumu Nakajima, Yuumi Kawai and Bando Ryota round off the main cast.

Renoir was one of the award-winning feature-film projects at TorinoFilmLab in 2023 (see the news). Principal photography occurred in Japan from July-September 2024, while a November 2024 stint in the Philippines also took place. The cinematography is credited to Hideho Urata, who lensed Plan 75 and the last two features by Singaporean filmmaker Yeo Siew Hua: Stranger Eyes [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] and the Locarno winner A Land Imagined [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]. Rémi Boubal (Plan 75, Mexico 86 [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: César Díaz
film profile]) has composed the music.

The production is a transcontinental team-up between Japan’s Loaded Films and Happinet Corporation, France’s Ici et Là Productions and ARTE France Cinéma, Singapore’s Akanga Film Asia (Tiger Stripes [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Amanda Nell Eu
film profile]), the Philippines’ Daluyong Studios (Plan 75) and Nathan Studios, and Indonesia’s KawanKawan Media (Autobiography [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], Tiger Stripes). Goodfellas holds the world sales rights to the film.