Accessibility
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This screening is presented with English subtitles. Wheelchair spaces and step-free seating is available for this screening – click below to book accessible seats.
Japan202382 minJapanese with English subtitlesToronto Premiere
From the team behind Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes (Reel Asian Official Selection, 2021) comes Junta Yamaguchi’s latest time loop comedy, River. Set in a quaint inn along the Kibune river near Kyoto—a one-street village wedged between a riverbed on one side and mountains on the other—staff and guests find themselves stuck in a continuous two-minute time loop. Mikoto, a waitress, returns to the river bank after each loop, plunging into a relentless cycle of perplexing scenarios. Her coworkers, the cook, and the mystified guests all grapple with mounting confusion. Despair and disorientation engulf those at the inn, as the uncanny sensation of repeatedly returning to the same moment leads to a frantic quest for answers.
Powered by sweeping takes, pulsating performances from a dynamic ensemble cast, and the distinctively vibrant visual style of creative duo Yamaguchi and Makoto Ueda, River offers a punchy yet fascinating window into the human yearning for solace, love, and ritual, mirroring the cyclical nature of everyday existence with the enigmatic loop of time itself.
– Nicolas Uribe
Riko Fujitani
Yoshimasa Kondo
Shiori Kubo
OFFICIAL SELECTION
Fantasia Film Festival, 2023
Fantastic Fest, 2023
Sitges Film Festival, 2023
Junta Yamaguchi
Junta Yamaguchi is a director and cinematographer, known for Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes (2020), River (2023), and 36,000 Seconds in a Day (2022).
PG
10 Nov, 2023 8:00 pm
TIFF Bell Lightbox C4–
This screening is presented with English subtitles. Wheelchair spaces and step-free seating is available for this screening – click below to book accessible seats.
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Founded in Toronto in 1997, Reel Asian is Canada’s largest pan-Asian film festival and a year-round cultural organization dedicated to championing Asian and Asian diasporic artists and storytellers. What began as a grassroots film festival has grown into a national platform supporting filmmakers and audiences through screenings, education, industry initiatives, artist development, and community programming presented across Toronto, the GTA, and online across Canada.
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