A film like One Summer Story is one of the reasons I started Unseen Films. I wanted to put films on the radar that seem to have disappeared. ONE SUMMER STORY is exactly that. Released two years ago in Japan, the film apparently never really played anywhere and only surfaced at this years New York International Children’s Film Festival because the programming director did a deep dive into back catalogs.
The film concerns an anime loving girl who decides to try and find her biological father via the brother of one of her classmates. The result is a film full of magnificent people, lots of laughs, a few tears and the most moving romance in years.
My god this is a great film.
This maybe the crown jewel in NYICFF’s line up this year and its only screening played to a near packed house at the festival.
I truly love this film.
Sure the film looks like a typical teen film, but the truth is it speaks volumes about life, family, friends and potential lovers. This is a film about real people who live without TV like conflicts. People just are. I adore that the film has a trans character who is just there among everyone else. I love that people connect in ways that real people connect, shared interests. This is the way people do it in real life.
I don’t know how this hasn’t escaped to more festivals and world wide release. Yes it looks typical, but the fact is that is you watch it, if you watch the whole thing, you find that there is this magic to it. There is these moments late in the film where it’s like watching lightning in a bottle as all the buildup between the characters pay off in spades.
This film needs to be seen. Some bigger festival, such as New York or New York Asian or Fantasia or some other bigger name festival needs to get this on the world’s radar.
This is the sort of film that explains why films can be more that bang bang shoot’em up.
I have no idea how you can do it, but track this film down and see it.
Block out two and a half hours, get some popcorn and just sit an watch this film and watch people find each other.
This is a great film and highly recommended.
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