Yakushimas's Illusion

In the organizer's words:

Organ transplants are still considered culturally and religiously controversial in Japan: The boundary between body and soul, between death and living on, remains delicate. Naomi Kawase, always a filmmaker who merges spirituality and physicality, dedicates her first feature film project in five years to this taboo. "Yakushima's Illusion" tells the story of French heart surgeon Corry, who works in a high-tech hospital in Kobe and encounters great resistance to organ transplants from colleagues and patients. Corry, who once met a photographer on the island of Yakushima who disappeared without a trace, is plagued by intense fears of loss. Is he dead, or "vaporized" like the so-called Johatsu? Naomi Kawase answers these questions with poetic images of ancient trees, misty hills, plays of light between nature and clinic, birth and death. Formally, "Yakushima's Illusion" remains true to Kawase's shimmering cosmos, reminiscent of her masterpiece "Cherry Blossoms and Red Beans" in its enlightening gesture and the interweaving of medical controversy with personal history. Vicky Krieps plays Corry with a quiet presence and is an ideal partner for Kawase's cinema, which oscillates between mysticism and empiricism. The Luxembourger carries the melodramatic tangle - between child heart surgery, loss of love and philosophical questions about identity - with a quiet dignity that never tips over into sentimentality. The result is a work that rethinks organ donation not only medically, but also spiritually.