Shirumashi

In a quiet mountain village in Tono, Iwate, a young girl knows that her grandmother does not have long to live. Feeling helpless, she wanders deep into the mountains, praying for her grandmother’s recovery. As she walks, she finds herself humming the lullaby her grandmother once sang to her. In these mountains, said to be home to the gods, she experiences something known as “Shirumashi”, a prophecy.

Part of [MIRRORLIAR FILMS Vol. 4], available worldwide outside of Japan


ABOUT THE DIRECTOR

Takeshi Fukunaga 福永 壮志

Takeshi Fukunaga is a filmmaker from Hokkaido, Japan. He moved to the United States in 2003 to study filmmaking and worked in New York before relocating to Tokyo in 2019. His first feature film, Out of My Hand (2015), premiered in the Panorama section of the Berlin International Film Festival, won the Best U.S. Fiction Award at the Los Angeles Film Festival, and was nominated for a John Cassavetes Independent Spirit Award. His second feature, Ainu Mosir (2020), received a Special Jury Mention at the Tribeca Film Festival and won Best Film at the Guanajuato International Film Festival. His third feature, Mountain Woman (山女, 2022), premiered in the Main Competition at the Tokyo International Film Festival. Fukunaga has also directed episodes of Tokyo Vice and FX’s Emmy-winning series Shōgun.