“Shoplifters,” a Japanese drama about a poverty-stricken family, will be shown at 4 p.m. Jan. 27 at the IU Cinema.
The film won the Palme d’Or award after it debuted at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival. The film follows a family living in poverty that is reliant on shoplifting to survive. It is screening as a part of the cinema’s East Asian Film Series and International Arthouse Series.
Directed by Kore-eda Hirokazu, “Shoplifters” was the first Japanese film in over 20 years to win top honors at Cannes, according to the IU Cinema’s website. The film recently received an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film of 2018.
The film is a part of the cinema’s "East Asian Film Series: Current Trends in Japanese Cinema" and was approved as a Creative Collaboration.
The Creative Collaboration program allows campus units, student groups and community organizations to select a film or series which inspires engagement with the arts. The program has partnered with over 200 campus and community collaborators on over 1,000 film screenings, according to IU Cinema’s website.
“I hope people turn out for this film precisely because it paints a realistic picture of poverty in Japan,” said Michael Crandol, visiting assistant professor in the Department of East Asian Languages & Cultures.
The film, a box office hit in Japan, became the target of conservative critics for the sympathetic portrayal of a poverty-stricken family stealing. Critics argued the film presented an unflattering portrait of Japanese society to the rest of the world, Crandol said.
“The vision we have of Japan is of a high-tech, affluent urban society, and the fact that many people in Japan haven't shared in this economic prosperity is usually ignored in the usual samurai and science-fiction anime that we tend to associate with much Japanese cinema,” Crandol said.
Tickets for the screening are free and they’re moving fast, said Brittany Friesner, associate director for the IU Cinema. Friesner is encouraging people who wish to attend the screening to pick up their tickets in advance online or in person at the IU Auditorium box office.
