Cincinnati World Cinema is screening Shoplifters, winner of the 2018 Palme d’Or award at the Cannes Film Festival, through Jan. 10. Encore screenings will be held Saturday Jan. 19, 7 p.m. and Sunday Jan. 20, 4 p.m.
The Japanese film, written and directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda, tells the story of a family living in Tokyo who uses petty theft as a way to deal with a life of poverty and pragmatic desperation. The shoplifting is done by the father Osamu (Lily Franky) and son Shota (Jyo Kairi). On one of their outings they find a neglected and bruised young girl, Juri (Miyu Sasaki), whom they take into their family. The mother Nobuyo (Sakura Ando), grandmother Hatsue (Kirin Kiki) and older sister Aki (Mayu Matsuoka) make up the rest of this patchwork, unconventional family — who all live together in a cramped apartment.
Kore-eda’s films aren’t a stranger to exploring complicated family dynamics. Like Father, Like Son tells the story of a father who learns his biological son was switched at birth with the boy he has raised. Nobody Knows follows the lives of children whose mother left them.
CityBeat film critic tt stern-enzi named Shoplifters one of his favorite films of the year, saying: “We are all born into the family of Man, but writer-director Hirokazu Koreeda…posits that the more powerful bond truly uniting us comes when we choose, with open hearts, those we’re willing to let inside. There was no better expression of this lesson in 2018.”
Showtimes: 7 p.m. Jan. 4; 4 and 7 p.m. Jan. 5; 4 p.m. Jan. 6; 7 p.m. Jan. 7-10. JUST ADDED: Jan. 19, 7 p.m.; Jan. 20, 4 p.m.
$10 advance; $15 door. Cincinnati World Cinema Garfield Theatre, 719 Race St., Downtown, cincyworldcinema.org.
This article appears in Dec 26, 2018 – Jan 2, 2019.
