Happyend (in-person & online)

Hayato Kurihara, Yukito Hidaka, Yuta Hayashi, Shina Peng

Playful and beautifully crafted, the smart, sweet fiction feature debut from Neo Sora – following fast on the heels of his moving documentary tribute to his composer-performer father, Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus (2023) – transports us to a near-future Tokyo under the constant threat of earthquakes and dangerously close to becoming a total surveillance state.

Amidst the oppressive atmosphere of their school, wannabe DJs Yuta (Hayato Kurihara) and Kou (Yukito Hidaka) pursue their secret passion for dance music – trying their best to escape the cameras proliferating throughout the city and their school, where a new system monitors and instantly scrutinises student behaviour, reporting demerits in its live feed for all to see. The school insists it’s for safety only, but the students aren’t so sure. How should they fight back – with traditional protests and sit-ins, or by staging shocking and spectacular pranks?

Realising a stunning vision of a dystopian Tokyo – eerily empty and struggling to cope with a barrage of cultural and geological crises – Happyend is both speculative and urgent, asking us to imagine the possibilities of the future, and consider the pleas of its youthful, stubborn protagonists, in the here and now.