BFI London Film Festival: The Furthest End Awaits

When her father disappears, Misaki is left only with debts and an old family boathouse at the very tip of the Noto Peninsula, on the Sea of Japan. Vowing to make good on her father’s obligations, she transforms the boathouse into a small cafe, which becomes a beacon for her local community. She becomes close with her neighbour, Eriko, a single parent who struggles to identify with her role as mother of two young children. As the women’s friendship deepens, it transforms them both.

Director Chiang Hsiu Chiung (who starred in Edward Yang’s A Brighter Summer Day) beautifully observes the dynamics of familial responsibility and the quiet nostalgia of grief with a deceptive simplicity reminiscent of Ozu. Eliciting magnificently restrained performances from all her cast, her direction of Hiyori Sakurada, the young daughter who learns to be her own woman through the flawed guidance of her two caregivers, possesses a particularly touching poignancy. [Jemma Desai]

Tickets for London Film Festival screenings can be purchased through the BFI and BFI Box Office 020 7928 3232 (9.30am-8.30pm daily) or the London Film Festival website: bfi.org.uk/lff