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Confessions

Confessions

Kokuhaku

Tetsuya Nakashima

  • Country: Japan
  • Year: 2010
  • Language: Japanese
  • Producer: Genki Kawamura
  • Executive Producer: Minami Ichikawa, Yasuhiro Tsukada
  • Screenplay: Tetsuya Nakashima, based on the book by Kanae Minato
  • Runtime: 106
  • Programmes:

Tetsuya Nakashima's Confessions is one of Japan's most important films of the year. A stylized mixture of cruelty and compassion, the film spins the dark tale of vengeance of a teacher whose little daughter has been killed by two of her students in seventh grade.

Adaptation,  Coming of Age & Youth,  Crime and Thriller,  Japan,  Violence

screening times

    • Friday September 17
    • 9:00:00 PM
    • RYERSON
    • Saturday September 18
    • 5:30:00 PM
    • SCOTIABANK THEATRE 11
    • Sunday September 19
    • 9:30:00 AM
    • SCOTIABANK THEATRE 11

Note: indicates Premium Screening.

official description

Tetsuya Nakashima’s Confessions is one of Japan’s most important films of the year. Reigning the national box office for weeks, the film has seduced, frightened, provoked and moved audiences with the depth of its focus on the delinquency of a despairing youth. A stylized mixture of cruelty and compassion, Confessions deals with school violence, bullying, revenge and love, while also addressing the miserable state of Japanese public schools, prejudices against HIV victims and the consequences of allowing teenage violence to go unpunished.

A monologue is delivered over the usual chaos of a seventh grade classroom on a spring morning. The voice belongs to a teacher who stands powerless in front of her class, an undisciplined tangle of thirteen-year-olds playing with their mobile phones, shouting, moving around and simply not paying attention. But the teacher’s voice and her chilling address gradually become more and more disturbing. She announces that she is going to leave the school at the end of the month. A single mother overwhelmed by the death of her daughter, she cannot work any longer because she knows her child was killed by two of her own students.

The murderers are too young to be tried for their crimes and the teacher will not reveal their names, nor turn them in. Post-traumatic shock and detachment seem to have granted her an immense power and searing lucidity. Her revenge will be painfully pure.

Based on the bestselling novel Kohuhaku by Kanae Minato, Confessions reveals the key mystery in its opening sequence and then focuses on the reasons that prompted this violent act and subsequent vendetta. Shifting between the point of view of the teenagers and the devastated, grieving teacher, Nakashima prevents the audience from taking sides, allowing the viewers room to come to their own conclusions about the dark acts they witness.

Giovanna Fulvi

director bio

TetsuyaNakashima was born in Fukuoka, Japan and has directedaward-winning commercials, music videos,television series and films. His features include Happy-Go-Lucky (97), BeautifulSunday (98), Kamikaze Girls (04),Memories of Matsuko (06), Paco and the Magical Picture Book (08)and Confessions (10).

full credits

Principal Cast: Takako Matsu, Yoshino Kimura, Masaki Okada, Yukito Nishii, Kaoru Fujiwara, Ai Hashimoto
Producer: Genki Kawamura
Executive Producer: Minami Ichikawa, Yasuhiro Tsukada
Cinematographer: Shoichi Ato, Atsushi Ozawa
Editor: Yoshiyuki Koike
Sound: Masato Yano
Production Designer: Towako Kuwashima
   
International Sales Agent: Toho Company, Limited
Production Company: Toho
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