Super Happy Forever

Super Happy Forever

TIFF65: Greek Premiere
In Kohei Igarashi’s haunting, mysterious film, Sano and his friend Miyata return to the seaside town where Sano met his wife Nagi (Nairu Yamamoto) five years ago. Nagi is now deceased, and the trip is part of an attempt to exorcise Sano’s grief. Eventually, the director takes us back in time, showing the couple’s first meeting… Kohei shoots in long takes, portraying the action in a cool, distanced manner that allows for contemplation even as the story remains engrossing. Sano and Nagi’s strange, felicitous first meeting is key to the film’s themes of chance, personality, and the strange and often cruel ways they intersect. Hiroshi Sano gives a fine performance, exuding dazed grief in the film’s opening section and altering his technique with the leap back to happier times. Super Happy Forever is a deceptively casual film: beneath the placid surface lies something dark and unnameable yet somehow recognizable.
Screening Schedule

No physical screenings scheduled.

Direction: Kohei Igarashi
Script: Kohei Igarashi, Koichi Kubodera
Cinematography: Wataru Takahashi
Editing: Keiko Okawa, Kohei Igarashi, Damien Manivel
Sound: Gen Takahashi, Agathe Poche, Simon Apostolou
Music: Daigo Sakuragi
Actors: Hiroki Sano, Yoshinori Miyata, Nairu Yamamoto, Hoang Nhu Quynh
Production: NOBO LLC, MLD FILMS
Producers: Makoto Oki, Yusaku Emoto
Co-producers: Martin Bertier, Damien Manivel
Costumes: Kento Asai
Executive producer: Kohei Igarashi, Kenshi Otaka, Misaki Kawamura, Satoshi Takata, Go Kitahara, Takashi Omatsu
Format: DCP
Color: Color
Production Country: Japan, France
Production Year: 2024
Duration: 95'
Contact: Bac Films

Kohei Igarashi

Born in Shizuoka, Japan, in 1983, Kohei Igarashi graduated in Cinema from the Tokyo Zokei University. In 2008, he directed his first feature film, Voice of Rain That Comes at Night, which was selected at the Cinema Digital Seoul Film Festival (CINDI), before going to graduate school at the Tokyo University of the Arts. Hold Your Breath Like a Lover is his diploma film. His latest short, Two of Us (2023), has been selected at the San Sebastian IFF.

Filmography

2008 Voice of Rain That Comes at Night
2011 Apartness (short)
2012 Marchen (short)
2013 House of Tofu (short)
2014 Hold Your Breath Like a Lover
2017 Takara, la nuit où j'ai nagé (co-direction)
2023 Two of Us (short)
2024 Super Happy Forever