TOURISM
dir. Daisuke Miyazaki, 2018
Japan/Singapore. 77 min.
In Japanese with English subtitles.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 3 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, AUGUST 13 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, AUGUST 25 – 5 PM
TUESDAY, AUGUST 29 – 7:30 PM

When Nina (Nina Endo) wins a pair of free airline tickets, she leaves her dingy apartment and part-time factory job to take her first trip abroad. She and her best friend, Su (Sumire), travel to Singapore where they find themselves displaced in a short period of time by the country’s mix of the familiar and unfamiliar, predictable and unpredictable. When Nina loses her smartphone, she ventures out to explore a new side of the city, discovering new sides of herself in the process.

Miyazaki’s third feature is an ambitious blend of styles and formats, combining narrative fiction and documentary techniques alongside Youtube travel vlog aesthetics and Snapchat filters to craft an incredibly unique portrait of modern life. The immediacy of Miyazaki’s borderline-guerrilla shooting style cuts to the heart of the alienation, excitement, apprehensions, and consumer curiosities one feels when dropped into a new setting.