Kato Takuya / Japan / 2026 / 82min / Competition

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The latest film from the young Japanese director Kato Takuya, The Day After Sunday, is one of constantly simmering tension. Set over around a week in a countryside hotel retreat, this rather minimalist drama concerns a married couple – Mai (Kuroki Haru) and Koichi (Hashimoto Atsushi) – expecting a child, though unresolved on whether or not they want to keep it. Takuya's screenplay isn't always so frank about the characters' conflicting feelings, often choosing to elide or outright avoid detail. Some things are clear enough however: Takuya, through the film's visuals builds the hotel into a symbolic prison for Mai. If she's unable to verbalise exactly how she is feeling, Takuya's incredibly cold lighting and minimal, clinical environment of the hotel and its grey concrete walls, the sparseness of the mise-en scene, all builds a sense of discomfort and repression into the // Even outdoors there's some cruel irony, a travelling outdoor cinema at the hotel shows the late Agnes Varda's film Cleo from 5 to 7 – the main plot point being about a woman awaiting the results of a life-changing test (though in the case of Cleo, it's awaiting a potential cancer diagnosis). There's no escaping how this decision looms over her. Such opacity is compounded by an illusive but mostly compelling Kuroki Haru. Her performance is one of microscopic expressions, and it's an admirable performance, but sometimes in combination with Takuya's insistence on keeping details of the relationship ambiguous, it can feel emotionally distancing. The lack of clarity eventually does a disservice to some moments which feel as though they could land with bigger impact, even with the restrained style of filming and performance​