Amiko, a high school girl, adores Aomi to the point of nearly worshipping him. But one day, he runs away from home. Amiko’s sometimes cynical, sometimes self-deprecating inner monologue goes off like vibrant stand-up comedy.

DESERT OF NAMIBIA is Yamanaka’s second feature following her acclaimed 2017 debut AMIKO. AMIKO won the Audience Award at Japan’s influential Pia Film Festival for emerging directors, and went on to screen internationally at film festivals like the 2018 Berlinale, where Yamanaka became the youngest feature filmmaker in the festival’s history to screen her work.

Described as a “distant cousin of Louis Malle’s Zazie dans le Métro by way of the uniquely DIY spirit of the Japanese self-made films (jishu-eiga) of the 1970s and 1980s, AMIKO is a gleefully irreverent, crystalline sour-sweet confection of extreme emotions, forged in the fiery pits of adolescence. Having dropped out of college to make her first feature, Yamanaka subverts the image of the schoolgirl into a strong counter-cultural figure, revealing what should soon become a cult character: a young punk in seifuku, resisting apathy, mass culture – and a boy’s indifference – one blazing conviction at a time. No one over  20 was allowed on set while making the film.

Doors Open 30 Minutes Before Showtime.