(C) 2024 Cloud Production Committee.
Kurosawa Kiyoshi’s Cloud has been officially selected as Japan’s submission for Best International Feature Film in the 97th Academy Awards competition. The film follows the fate of a young man named Yoshi Ryosuke (played by Masaki Suda) who makes a living buying and selling merchandise online using the pseudonym of Ratel. After he quits his regular job and moves in with his girlfriend, Akiko (played by Furukawa Kotone), their lives become increasingly threatened by a series of chilling events precipitated by his online activities.
In making Cloud, Kurosawa said he wanted to explore the dark downside of today’s online culture. He was quoted as saying: “In the obscure corners of modern-day Japan, violent incidents sometimes occur for seemingly no reason whatsoever. When the causes are investigated, it becomes apparent that a system of sorts exists through which petty grudges and frustrations are accumulated and blown out of proportion by the internet.”
Kurosawa’s sentiments were echoed by the film’s producer, Arakawa Yumi, who declared: “Living in modern-day Japan, you can sense that society is heading in an ever more dangerous direction. Incidents in which rage and madness born from a lack of mutual understanding unexpectedly spiral out of control. Unfathomable crimes arise from unreasonable resentment. Attacks are made on individuals via social media. It would come as no surprise if someone you know, or a person you’ve never met, were to be set upon by an assailant who just happens to be nearby.”
Cloud is making its out-of-competition debut at this week’s Venice Film Festival. In 2020, Kurosawa Kiyoshi won the festival’s Silver Lion award for best director with Wife of a Spy. At Cannes, he won the Un Certain Regard jury prize twice, for Tokyo Sonata in 2008 and Journey to the Shore in 2015.
Over the past few years, films from Japan have done well in the Oscar competition, notably Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car, which received four nominations and won the trophy for Best international Feature. Nominations were also scored by Wim Wenders’s Perfect Days last year and by Hirokazu Koreeda’s Shoplifters in 2019. Back in 2009, Yojiro Takita’s Departures won an Oscar, and in 2011, Tetsuya Nakashima’s Confessions made the shortlist.
The 97th Academy Awards ceremony is scheduled to take place at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on March 3, 2025. A shortlist of 15 finalists will be announced on December 17, 2024 and the final five nominees will be revealed on January 17, 2025.
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