CLOUD
a film by Kiyoshi Kurosawa
LATE NIGHT PRESENTATION
MAY 29, 2025 • 11:00 PM
@ THE BUS STOP THEATRE
(2203 GOTTINGEN STREET, HALIFAX)
2024 / JAPAN / 124 mins
In Japanese with English subtitles
For over 40 years, there’s been no better model for prolific, shape-shifting filmmaking than Kiyoshi Kurosawa. One of the true modern masters of Japanese cinema, Kurosawa has effortlessly adapted his signature style to horror, spy thrillers, quasi-musical travelogues, even a French-language remake of his own early work.
Cloud is (roughly) Kurosawa’s 27th feature, and it picks up in theme where his 2001 opus Pulse left off: in a menacing sojourn through the horrors of online living. In it, Ryosuke Yoshii (Masaki Suda, The Boy and the Heron) turns a shady side gig as an internet reseller into a full-time operation, quitting his day job and carting himself and his girlfriend Akiko (Kotone Furukawa, Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy) out to the Japanese countryside.
As sinister acts begin to take place around his new home, Ryosuke struggles to find the perpetrator behind them, as his online transgressions could make him the target of potentially anyone. What follows is a violent journey through our morally ambiguous present, one that works to tie digital torment back to the very real pain it produces. —Evan Bower
TRAILER
ABOUT THE FILMMAKER
Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Born in 1955, Kobe, Hyogo Prefecture. Graduated from the Department of Sociology at Rikkyo University in 1980. Began making 8mm films while in university and studied under Kazuhiko Hasegawa and Shinji Somai. Subsequently drew international attention with Cure (1997), and won the FIPRESCI Prize at the 54th Cannes Film Festival for Pulse (2000).