Masayume

Forum 2026

Forum audiences know Nao Yoshigai as the shadowy figure from Kaori Oda‘s Underground (2025), a young woman as a medium between two realms: everyday kitchen gestures and haptic explorations of caves and the past. In her directorial debut, this artistic all-rounder uses a similar hybrid form to confront her soul and inner life – and with it the universal questions of life and death, stories and images, materiality and spirituality. Following her mother’s passing, she seeks refuge and calm in a Zen temple to physically and mentally process what has engulfed her completely, paralysed her, stopped her in her tracks: her grief. In these Zen Buddhist surroundings, she learns to move her attention away from a human-centred perspective and on to the small hand movements and gestures, objects and rituals that make each single grain of rice a sensation. What in philosophy might be deemed an experience of transcendence is portrayed by Yoshigai with humour and sensual grace: she augments the retreat with family photos, performances and hand-drawn animations, from the rumbling stomach to the intestinal tract – and back to humility, acceptance, liberation. A moving three-acter without a story!

Trailer/Film Excerpt

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by Nao Yoshigai (Director, Screenplay)
with Nao Yoshigai Japan 2026 Japanese 110' Colour & Black/White World premiere | Debut film | Documentary form

With

Nao Yoshigai

Crew

Director	Nao Yoshigai
Screenplay	Nao Yoshigai
Cinematography	Kaori Oda, Nao Yoshigai
Editing	Nao Yoshigai
Music	Tomohito Wakui
Sound Design	Masaya Kitada
Production Design	Koyuki Kato
Producers	Nao Yoshigai, Eijun Sugihara

Produced by

WHITE LEOTARDS

Tokio, Japan

World Sales

WHITE LEOTARDS & Parallax Films

Peking, People’s Republic of China

Photos

Nao Yoshigai

Nao Yoshigai, born 1987 in Yamaguchi, graduated from the Department of Dance at Japan Women's College of Physical Education and earned her MA at the Graduate School of Film and New Media at Tokyo University of the Arts. Yoshigai considers the changes that occur in the mind and body when one tries to understand the world through the five senses, through activities such as dance. She makes films based on these sensations. She also appears in movies as a performer, directs stage productions and designs sets for stage productions.

Filmography

2015 hottamaru・days 2017 Breathing House; short documentary · Stories Floating on the Wind; short film 2018 Grand Bouquet; short film 2019 Wheel Music; short documentary 2021 Shari 2026 Masayume

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2026