Grief doesn't have a sell-by date, not really. Decades after a loss, the absence is still felt, the memories remain. And how much worse if the death was sudden and accidental? How can you ever forget — or forgive those who were to blame?
That is the question posed by Atsushi Funahashi's "Sakura Namiki no Mankai no Shita ni (Cold Bloom)," which was selected for this year's Berlin International Film Festival's Forum section, Funahashi's fourth film to screen at one of the world's Big Three festivals — and the friendliest to his type of dark, serious art film.
Based on Funahashi's original script, "Cold Bloom" is set in Hitachi, a city on the coast of Ibaraki Prefecture that suffered costly damage from the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami not widely reported in the national media. It is also famous for the gorgeous cherry trees that feature so prominently in the film (as well as in the title).
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