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Suzume

Competition 2023
© 2022 "Suzume" Film Partners
In a small, peaceful town on Japan’s southern island of Kyushu, 17-year-old Suzume has lived with her aunt ever since she lost her mother as a little girl. One day on her way to school, she meets a mysterious young man named Souta who is in search of a door. She follows him into the mountains and finds a dilapidated old door standing alone among ruins. On an impulse, Suzume turns the handle, and at once sets free all the calamities the portal was meant to contain. All around Japan other doors open, threatening a population unaware of the looming danger. Together, Suzume and Souta set out on a journey to close them all again.
Written and directed by anime auteur Makoto Shinkai, this epic adventure takes us across the length and breadth of Japan, venturing outside metropolitan hubs to seek doors of disaster in the abandoned infrastructures of depopulated rural areas. As we follow this young woman in her frantic search, we realise that she is also engaged in a personal quest for maturity and freedom. An intimate portrait that is also a study of a vulnerable yet combative nation, Suzume is a sign of resilience at a time when Mother Earth is sending humankind evidence of her fury.
by Makoto Shinkai (Director, Screenplay)
with Nanoka Hara, Hokuto Matsumura, Eri Fukatsu, Shota Sometani, Sairi Ito, Kotone Hanase, Kana Hanazawa, Ryunosuke Kamiki, Hakuo Matsumoto Japan 2022 Japanese 122' Colour International premiere | Animation

With

  • Nanoka Hara (Suzume Iwato)
  • Hokuto Matsumura (Souta Munakata)
  • Eri Fukatsu (Tamaki Iwato)
  • Shota Sometani (Minoru Okabe)
  • Sairi Ito (Rumi Ninomiya)
  • Kotone Hanase (Chika Amabe)
  • Kana Hanazawa (Tsubame Iwato)
  • Ryunosuke Kamiki (Tomoya Serizawa)
  • Hakuo Matsumoto (Hitsujiro Munakata)

Crew

Director Makoto Shinkai
Screenplay Makoto Shinkai
Editing Makoto Shinkai
Character Design Masayoshi Tanaka
Animation Director Kenichi Tsuchiya
Music Radwimps, Kazuma Jinnouchi
Art Director Takumi Tanji
Production Manager Tomohiro Tokunaga
Producer Genki Kawamura
Co-Producers Wakana Okamura, Kinue Ito
Executive Producers Noritaka Kawaguchi, Yoshihiro Furusawa
Co-Production Story Tokio

World Sales

Toho

Produced by

CoMix Wave Films

Photos

Press Conference

Red Carpet

Makoto Shinkai

© CoMixWaveFilms

Born in the Japanese prefecture of Nagano in 1973, he made his directing debut in 2002 with his self-produced short film Voices of a Distant Star. His first feature film, The Place Promised in Our Early Days, won Best Animated Film at the 59th Mainichi Film Awards. His subsequent films also won several prizes at national and international festivals. In 2016, Your Name was a commercial and critical success, winning numerous international awards and going on to become the second-highest grossing Japanese film. His most recent film, Weathering With You, topped the box office in Japan in 2019.

Filmography

2002 Hoshi no koe (Voices of a Distant Star) 2004 Kumo no mukou yakusoku no basho (The Place Promised in Our Early Days) 2007 Byosoku 5 senchimetoru (5 Centimeters Per Second) 2011 Hoshi wo ou kodomo (Children Who Chase Lost Voices) 2013 Kotonoha no niwa (The Garden of Words) 2016 Kimi no na wa (Your Name) 2019 Tenki no ko (Weathering With You) 2022 Suzume

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2023