Friends growing apart and lovers splitting up are staple storylines in Japanese indie films. A protagonist professionally outstripping her rivals, however, is not, though many young indie filmmakers whose work gets reviewed in this space have done exactly that by winning prizes and otherwise standing out.
One such director is 27-year-old Saki Michimoto, whose stylish and accomplished debut feature, “See You Again Tomorrow,” is about a gifted photographer who is accurately called “merciless” by a classmate and kind-of boyfriend.
Winner of a Special Jury Award at the Pia Film Festival in 2018 for her short “19: Nineteen,” Michimoto has created a protagonist in the cool-eyed, unflappable Nao (Makoto Tanaka) that may not necessarily be autobiographical — on the film’s site, Michimoto describes her as the sort of person she “wanted to be” — but feels grounded in a lived reality.
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