Annual Top Films Lists

Top 100 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2022: #69. Koji Fukada’s Love Life

Published on January 9, 2022

Love Life

Just a couple of weeks back we saw Japan’s Koji Fukada name attached to a market project going by the title of Love on Trial. Is this project and Love Life one of the same? After a 2020 that saw the helmer work in the short form with a three film output, production on Love Life (inspired by a song by Japanese artist Akiko Yano and the consequences of the pandemic) would have began in September of 2021 with some French production money. We know Fukada best from a string of popular film fest items in Sayonara (2015), Harmonium (2016), The Man from the Sea (2018), A Girl Missing (read the review) and finally The Real Thing (2020).

Gist: Taeko leads a peaceful life with her husband, Jiro, whom she remarried a year ago, and her 6-year-old son, Keita. One day, Keita dies in an accident at a party. Taeko, who is unable to recover from her sadness, experiences a breakup with her husband, who does not seem to share his feelings. At the funeral, Sangsoo, Keita’s biological father suddenly reappears after Taeko has heard nothing from him …

Release Date/Prediction: If this actually went into production back in the fall, then we’d expect a Locarno drop.

Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include 1976 (Manuela Martelli), Godland (Hlynur Pálmason), Corsage (Marie Kreutzer), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen).