Cinema at Sea Announces Complete Programme for 2025

Cinema at Sea – Okinawa Pan-Pacific International Film Festival has announced the full programme for its second edition which runs 22nd February to 3rd March, 2025. This year’s festival opens with Ocean Elegy: The Tragedies of Mudan and Ryukyu, a documentary exploring the Mudan incident, and closes with New Zealand drama, Tinā. The festival will also feature a special focus on Maori filmmaker Mike Jonathan.

Here are the East Asian features screening in this year’s programme:

Indonesia

• Tale of the Land – drama revolving around a young woman who believes she is living with a curse that prevents her from setting foot on land.

Japan

• Asia is One (1973) – the Nippon Documentarist Union explore the destructive legacies of imperialism and exploitation through the stories of migrant workers in the Okinawan islands. Review.
• BOuQuET – experimental drama directed by actress Sahel Rosa.
• Enlightenment – drama revolving around a man who uses media to escape reality.
• Paradise of Solitude – human drama in which a blocked writer receives a letter from a woman looking for lost love.
• River Returns – poetic and elliptical drama from Masakazu Kaneko in which a little boy goes on a journey into the folkloric past.
• Rules of Living – drama in which a woman opens her home to a befuddled tourist.
• Step Out – Okinawa-set drama from Yukihiko Tsutsumi following a young man who dreams of dancing.
• YUUHO：No Border – documentary focusing on disability activist Yuuho.

Malaysia

• Next Stop, Somewhere – two people head abroad in search of freedom only to end up trapped by pandemic quarantine and a loveless marriage.

Philippines

• Gensan Punch – drama from Brillante Ma Mendoza in which a Japanese boxer heads to the Philippines after he is rejected by the Japanese Boxing Association on the grounds of his disability.

South Korea

• Boy in the Pool – gentle drama about a boy a girl who meet at the pool but then take different paths in life.
• Okinawa Blue Note – a best-selling Korean romance novelist travels to Okinawa only to experience unexpected complicattions.

Taiwan

• From Island to Island – documentary focusing on the wartime past.
• Ocean Elergy: The Tragedies of Mudan and Ryukyu – documentary focusing on the Mudan incidenent.
• The Love in Okinawa – recently rediscovered Okinawa-Taiwan co-production from 1968 in which the love between childhood sweethearts is disrupted by a toxic feud between their parents.
• Sunset Over the Horizon – recently rediscovered Okinawa-Taiwan co-production from 1968 in which a young woman forced into an arranged marriage falls for a drunken preacher.

Thailand

• Rivulet of Universe – mystical drama in which a Cambodian migrant worker meets a young couple with relationship issues mirroring those of an ancient myth.

Cinema at Sea – Okinawa Pan-Pacific International Film Festival takes place at cinemas across the islands 22nd February to 3rd March 2025. The full programme can be found on the official website while you can also follow Cinema at Sea on Facebook, Instagram, and X (fomerly known as Twitter).