Ôkoku (aruiwa sono ie ni tsuite)

Aki and Naoko are childhood friends who are drifting apart as adults. Immersed in her family life, Naoko now has a husband and daughter. Aki, on the other hand, remains single and is on leave from work due to a personal crisis. The plot might sound familiar but it has never been told like this. The director Kusano Natsuka stages the interactions through an actors' table-read and, as the lines are repeated, the scenes gradually develop into on-location conversations. She repositions the dramatic peak of the story to the beginning: Aki has murdered Naoko's daughter.