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Yutaka Tsunemachi, after directing two short films, “Namigiwa” in 2018 and “Female” in 2020, and a few episodes of the TV series “Me, My Husband & My Husband's Boyfriend” in 2023, debuts with full-length drama “Drifting Flowers, Flowing Days”. The movie had its international premiere at the 45th Moscow International Film Festival, where it won the Silver St. George Award for Best Actress.

Drifting Flowers, Flowing Days is screening at Asian Pop Up Cinema

The story concentrates on the everyday life of three characters – Hiroto (Hiroki Sato), Futaba (Kaho Seto) and Daigo (Masashi Yamada). Hiroto works at a construction site, Futaba at a flower shop, and Daigo in a design studio. Life appears to be proceeding as normal, but due to certain unforeseen events, like the occurrence of problems at work or family issues, they begin to question their life choices and reflect on the future.

Yutaka Tsunemachi chose to base his movie...

Fans of David Cronenberg and body horror get ready for the stunning sci-fi horror New Religion, now streaming on the Bloody Disgusting-powered Screambox!

New Religion is a Japanese surrealist body horror film written and directed by Keishi Kondo.

In the film, “After her daughter’s death, divorced Miyabi begins working as a call girl. One day, she meets an unsettling customer who wants to take pictures of her body parts. Soon, she realizes that every time she allows her body to be photographed her daughter’s spirit gets closer. She must decide how far she is willing to go to connect with her daughter once again.”

New Religion stars Kaho Seto, Daiki Nunami, Satoshi Oka and Saionji Ryuseigun.

The film had its North American premiere at the Slamdance Film Festival and was nominated for Best Narrative Feature. It previously screened at festivals around the world to rave reviews with Horror...

This week marks the official start of Summer 2023, and the horror genre is celebrating with four brand new movies that are releasing both in theaters and at home throughout the week.

Here’s all the new horror releasing June 20 – June 25, 2023!

For daily reminders about new horror releases, be sure to follow @HorrorCalendar.

First up, Japanese surrealist horror film New Religion is now streaming exclusively on Screambox beginning today, written and directed by Keishi Kondo.

In the film, “After her daughter’s death, divorced Miyabi begins working as a call girl. One day, she meets an unsettling customer who wants to take pictures of her body parts. Soon, she realizes that every time she allows her body to be photographed her daughter’s spirit gets closer. She must decide how far she is willing to go to connect with her daughter once again.”

New Religion stars Kaho Seto, Daiki Nunami, Satoshi Oka and Saionji Ryuseigun.

Fans of David Cronenberg and body horror get ready for the stunning sci-fi horror New Religion, streaming next Tuesday, June 20, only on Screambox!

New Religion is a Japanese surrealist body horror film written and directed by Keishi Kondo.

In the film, “After her daughter’s death, divorced Miyabi begins working as a call girl. One day, she meets an unsettling customer who wants to take pictures of her body parts. Soon, she realizes that every time she allows her body to be photographed her daughter’s spirit gets closer. She must decide how far she is willing to go to connect with her daughter once again.”

New Religion stars Kaho Seto, Daiki Nunami, Satoshi Oka and Saionji Ryuseigun.

The film had its North American premiere at the Slamdance Film Festival and was nominated for Best Narrative Feature. It previously screened at festivals around the world to rave reviews with Horror...

Fans of David Cronenberg and body horror get ready for the stunning sci-fi horror New Religion, acquired today by Cinedigm out of the Slamdance Film Festival.

Cinedigm plans to release New Religion on its horror streaming platform, Screambox, which is powered by Bloody Disgusting, later this year as a Screambox Original.

New Religion is a Japanese surrealist body horror film written and directed by Keishi Kondo.

In the film, “After her daughter’s death, divorced Miyabi begins working as a call girl. One day, she meets an unsettling customer who wants to take pictures of her body parts. Soon, she realizes that every time she allows her body to be photographed her daughter’s spirit gets closer. She must decide how far she is willing to go to connect with her daughter once again.”

New Religion stars Kaho Seto, Daiki Nunami, Satoshi Oka and Saionji Ryuseigun.

The film had its...

It’s hard to watch Keishi Kondo’s New Religion and stop yourself from pointing out the influences all over it. There’s an abstract opening sequence that brings to mind Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin; a plot that might take inspiration from Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now; deliberate pacing and images recalling Nicolas Winding Refn; one sequence almost directly inspired by Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Pulse; and an enigmatic character who could easily be played by Shinya Tsukamoto. Is it derivative? Sure, but that’s not an inherently bad thing, and Kondo’s blending of such inspirations into an off-kilter slice of cosmic horror makes for an intriguing feature debut.

The first act introduces Miyabi (Kaho Seto), a call girl who lost her daughter several years ago in a tragic accident for which she feels responsible. She has a new boyfriend (Saionji Ryuseigun) and goes through the motions...

Keishi Kondo is a Japanese director, screenwriter and producer. Born in 1985, he has been making films since graduating from university. He has worked as a freelancer in Tokyo and Toronto, producing music videos, event videos and other video works, and is currently working on corporate promotions and TV commercials in Japan. “New Religion” is his first feature film.

On the occasion of “New Religion” screening at Warsaw International Film Festival, we speak with him about the visuals and the unusual approach of the movie, Kaho Seto and the casting, violence in movies, the Japanese movie industry and other topics.

“New Religion” screened at Warsaw Film Festival

Do you like the color red a lot?

Yes, but I also think the particular color suits “New Religion”. This film is like my viewpoint οφ the world during the spreading of coronavirus. When we saw the pandemic for the first time, I thought I was watching apocalyptic images.

Despite the fact that J-horror has been long since dead, particularly in the impact it had during the “Ringu” era, occasionally there are efforts that come out of the Japanese industry that do offer new approaches to the genre, with titles like “Bamy” and “Mimicry Freaks” being the first that come to mind. It is easy to say that Keishi Kondo’s feature debut falls under the same category.

New Religion screened at Warsaw Film Festival

That this film is going to be different is evident from the initial scene, when Miyabi, the protagonist of the movie, realizes that she has not paid attention to her young daughter Aoi for some time. Withοut any kind of drum rolls, both her and the audience realize that the kid has fallen of the balcony and is now dead, with Kondo moving almost immediately to some later time, where Miyabi is living in the same apartment,...

Edgar Allan Poe’s quote of “all that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream” from his 1849 poem A Dream Within a Dream goes hand in hand with New Religion, a surreal and dark tale that centres on loss, grief and the lengths some will go to exploit the two.

Miyabi (Kaho Seto) lives an unhappy life after her daughter, Aio, dies tragically after falling off a balcony whilst watering her plants. As a result, her marriage has broken down, and her ex-husband still abuses and blames her for their daughter’s death. Miyabi tries to keep her daughter’s memory alive by tending to the plants, but her new boyfriend would like her to move on from the tragic event.

Miyabi now works as a sex worker along with Akari (Kuroe Mizuta), a young woman who self-harms and appears to have reverted to a child-like...

Hollywood has taught us to think of death as a noisy thing, accompanied by a lot of ritual and big displays of emotion. When young Aoi slips out of Miyabi’s life, she does so in silence. One moment she’s on the balcony; the next she’s not. Nothing else has changed. The difference is overwhelming, yet it hardly feels real, and Miyabi will continue looking for her on the balcony for a long, long time.

Months later, after her husband has divorced her, Miyabi (Kaho Seto) is still living in the same apartment but has a new boyfriend (Saionji Ryuseigun) and is trying to make a fresh start on life. She just can’t shake the feeling that Aoi is still around somewhere, just out of sight. To make ends meet, she works in the sex industry, which, like everything else, is struggling in tough economic times. One of her co-workers seems to.

New Religion Photo: Courtesy of FrightFest

One of the more unusual films screening at this year's Frightfest, Keishi Kondo's New Religion tells the story of a bereaved woman's fateful encounter with a sinister man. Kaho Seto plays Miyabi, a sex worker whose life collapses when her small daughter, Aoi, falls to her death from the balcony of their apartment. Whilst she tries to begin her life again after her subsequent divorce, with a new boyfriend and a determined effort to find happiness, she can't let go of the feeling that Aoi is still in the apartment, just out of sight. When new client Oka (Satoshi Oka) asks to take a photograph of her spine, it's the beginning of a process which could change everything - but not necessarily for the better.

Ahead of the film's screening, Keishi agreed to answer some questions about it.

Jennie Kermode: How does it...

There’s nothing particularly new about Tatsuro Manno’s “Storage Man” in its comment on global economic crises and the gig economy. Both are subjects tackled – and handled well – before, in works such as Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s “Tokyo Sonata” (2008) and Ken Loach’s “Sorry We Missed You” (2019), to name just a couple of examples. Manno’s piece, however, very much has Covid in mind, destroying more than just health, but entire lives.

“Storage Man” is screening at Skip City International D-Cinema Festival

Takashi (Hirotaka Renge) has lost his job as his company struggles to cope with the financial impact of Covid. As such, he spends his days at home looking for work online, downing beers as he does. His wife Akiko (Kaho Seto) is far from pleased, as are her parents who demand their divorce, leaving Takashi out on the street, without a wife, daughter, income or home. Walking past a storage space rental,...

Asian Shadows has picked up international rights to Japanese drama Drifting Flowers, Flowing Days, a story about youth, life and love in Tokyo, and its first Filipino production, Joseph Mangat’s documentary Divine Factory.

Drifting Flowers, Flowing Days follows three young people – one working on a construction site, one in a flower shop and the other in a design studio – who gradually begin to change when they start questioning life. Produced by Japan’s Ippo, the film is the feature debut of Yutaka Tsunemachi, whose short films include Namigiwa (2018) and Female (2019).

Hiroki Sato (Sasaki In My Mind), Kaho Seto (Orange...

The bonds that create families, particularly between mother and daughter, have been the topic of a number of quite interesting Asian films, with the examples of “Rebirth” and “Girls Always Happy” coming first to mind. Sae Suzuki, in her feature debut, takes her chance on the topic through a rather intriguing approach that combines some very interesting additional elements.

“My Identity” is screening at Japan Cuts 2020

Taiwanese-Japanese teenager Rei is bullied at school and her mother seems to show no understanding at all, instead beating her severely every time something happens. Frustrated by her life, Rei decides to try enjo kosai, after overhearing some classmates talking about how they can get money from older men. Her experience is rather traumatic and she ends up being saved by a passerby, Aoi, an office worker who has been stigmatized by petty gossip and the almost forced attention of a male colleague. Rei...