Darkness and sadness prevail in this portrait of desperation and loneliness among a group of Tokyo’s young people. Receiving its World Premiere at Raindance Film Festival, Tokyo Nightfall is in competition in the Best International Film category.
With Tokyo Nightfall, writer/director Yuto Shimizu explores the loneliness experienced by many young people in Japan’s huge capital city, and I think it’s a film that reveals itself better the less one knows about the story going in.
Amenashi (Iori Abe) is a young man who makes a soul-less living as a fast-food delivery guy, riding his bike through the neon-hued streets of Tokyo. His mood is subdued and, after quitting his job one evening, his friends Hattori (Taiga Hironaka) and Nozu (Kosuke Tanaka) become worried about him, and follow him to an event he has signed up to attend on his own. In this crazy space, all three come to terms with the isolation and unhappiness which touches their generation.
Interspersed with this thread are grainy, 4:3 home video clips featuring Amenashi’s sister Anna (Utano Aoi) and the three young men. Anna has been traumatised by seeing something terrible happen to a neighbour, and is struggling to deal with it. In the videos, the group talks about the happiest and saddest moments of their lives and, as the clips repeat several times in between Amenashi’s narrative, they gradually reveal more about the emotions of all of the young people, particularly those which they keep hidden from each other. Guilt and grief are strong, and none of the four appears to know how to deal with them.
Two of the men have a quiet rooftop conversation one evening. Amenashi asks “What is everyone thinking?” Hattori responds “If we knew that, it wouldn’t be so hard. Everyone’s full of contradictions.” This seems to be the core of the issue – people don’t say what they think, and anyway, there is always more going on that they will tell you. In a society which often expects emotions to be repressed in public, it’s not easy to ask for help when it’s needed.
Yuta Shimizu’s portrait of Tokyo does not present a comfortable place for young people. It speaks to the stresses of finding a job or an income, of a society in which isolation and loneliness is present – even though surrounded by so many people – and where the options to change things are dark indeed.
Tokyo Nightfall has its World Premiere and is in competition in the Best International Feature category at Raindance Film Festival from 25th June 2026.
Darkness and sadness prevail in this portrait of desperation and loneliness among a group of Tokyo’s young people. Receiving its World Premiere at Raindance Film Festival, Tokyo Nightfall is in competition in the Best International Film category.
With Tokyo Nightfall, writer/director Yuto Shimizu explores the loneliness experienced by many young people in Japan’s huge capital city, and I think it’s a film that reveals itself better the less one knows about the story going in.
Amenashi (Iori Abe) is a young man who makes a soul-less living as a fast-food delivery guy, riding his bike through the neon-hued streets of Tokyo. His mood is subdued and, after quitting his job one evening, his friends Hattori (Taiga Hironaka) and Nozu (Kosuke Tanaka) become worried about him, and follow him to an event he has signed up to attend on his own. In this crazy space, all three come to terms with the isolation and unhappiness which touches their generation.
Interspersed with this thread are grainy, 4:3 home video clips featuring Amenashi’s sister Anna (Utano Aoi) and the three young men. Anna has been traumatised by seeing something terrible happen to a neighbour, and is struggling to deal with it. In the videos, the group talks about the happiest and saddest moments of their lives and, as the clips repeat several times in between Amenashi’s narrative, they gradually reveal more about the emotions of all of the young people, particularly those which they keep hidden from each other. Guilt and grief are strong, and none of the four appears to know how to deal with them.
Two of the men have a quiet rooftop conversation one evening. Amenashi asks “What is everyone thinking?” Hattori responds “If we knew that, it wouldn’t be so hard. Everyone’s full of contradictions.” This seems to be the core of the issue – people don’t say what they think, and anyway, there is always more going on that they will tell you. In a society which often expects emotions to be repressed in public, it’s not easy to ask for help when it’s needed.
Yuta Shimizu’s portrait of Tokyo does not present a comfortable place for young people. It speaks to the stresses of finding a job or an income, of a society in which isolation and loneliness is present – even though surrounded by so many people – and where the options to change things are dark indeed.
Tokyo Nightfall has its World Premiere and is in competition in the Best International Feature category at Raindance Film Festival from 25th June 2026.
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