Since its founding in 1969 by the French Directors’ Guild, the Directors’ Fortnight has served as a vital and boldly independent counter program to the Cannes Film Festival. This year, the Directors’ Fortnight is taking it on the road for the first time, presenting locally curated selections of its 2024 program with director Julien Rejl in person.

The Fortnight Extended is presented by the Quinzaine des cinéastes, Villa Albertine, Acropolis Cinema, and the Museum of the Moving Image. Discount passes for admission to all seven screenings at the Culver Theater can be purchased here.

About the film:

Yôko Yamanaka’s second feature follows a 21-year-old Japanese woman of vacillating and unpredictable humour as she swaps one boyfriend for another. A beautician with little commitment to her work and no real desire to achieve anything, she can sometimes be cruel and aggressive. A wild child? She is simply alive. Nevertheless, unconvincing doctors diagnose her with bipolar disorder. With its dry editing and zooms, the film conveys the disarray of a woman battling against a society that is still rigid and patriarchal. A Kani release.

Preceded by:

Extremely Short (Dir. Kōji Yamamura, Japan, 5 min, 2024)

The shortest film in the selection, but by no means the least intense, is by a master of Japanese animation, Kōji Yamamura. Somewhere between calligraphy, embryology and words from beyond the grave, a convulsive poem wraps itself around the Japanese syllable 'da' – a breath that could just as well be the first as the last.

TRT: 142 min

Co-presented by the Yanai Initiatve for Globalizing Japanese Humanities