After Life

Part of the Hanabi Film Festival 2026. Limited festival passes available while supplies last.

Doors open at 6:30 PM; film at 7:00 PM.

If you could choose only one memory to hold on to for eternity, what would it be? That’s the question at the heart of Hirokazu Kore-eda’s (Shoplifters) revelatory international breakthrough, a bittersweet fantasia in which the recently deceased find themselves in a limbo realm where they must select a single cherished moment from their life to be recreated on film for them to take into the next world.

Dubbed as one of the “great humanists of the cinema” by Roger Ebert, Kore‑eda’s documentary-like approach to the high-concept material was shaped through interviews with hundreds of Japanese citizens. What emerges is a panoramic vision of the human experience—its ephemeral joys and lingering regrets—and a quietly profound meditation on memory.

Screened in Japanese with English subtitles.