A Road

あるみち

Description

Childhood is a time for dreaming. One of Daichi’s dreams has now come true: he’s studying film. But what happened to the happiness from childhood? What happened to those moments of elation as a little boy when he and his friends used to catch lizards without a care in the world? A documentary exercise at film school forms the starting point of his search for the end of childhood: for Daichi, capturing images with his camera is now just as much about capturing lizards.

In an attempt to retrieve the past, in “Aru michi”, Director SUGIMOTO Daichi casts himself as a film student of the same name in pursuit of his childhood. Calmly, ingeniously, he blurs reality and fiction as well as the boundary between the past and the present. What he discovers is both painful and beautiful: you can catch a lizard and keep it captive, but you cannot do the same with the past – which, unlike our memories of it, is ephemeral. In everyday situations with his mother and his friends, Daichi paints an authentic portrait of a generation on its way to adulthood. “Aru michi” is a sensitive film about taking leave of childhood while preserving what it means to be a child.

Festival Accolades