A Confined Urban Vision

Tokyo Currents

Kota NakamuraJapan - 10 min

Tokyo Currents is a documentary filmed in Shinjuku, Tokyo, in August 2020. Shinjuku was reputed to be Japan’s epicentre of COVID-19, with the largest number of people testing positive in the summer.
Over 3,000 nightlife businesses crowd Kabuki-cho at the heart of Shinjuku. For them, close interactions with customers are a vital part of their services. Mayor of Tokyo, in her daily news conference, kept urging people to stay away from this “City of Night”. The film explores one summer morning in the stigmatised city.

Kota Nakamura

Born in Tokyo in 1998. Currently studying sociology at Rikkyo University, Tokyo. Belongs to a filmmaking society Cinematograph at Rikkyo. His first mid-length film, Something Lost (2019), was screened at the 30th TAMA NEW WAVE, a Japanese indie film festival. Marginal: Short Version (2020), produced entirely remotely during the pandemic, was nominated for the Best International Film at the BFI Future Film Festival 2021. Marginal: Long Version (2020) received the Young Director Student Award at the Strangelove Time-based Media Festival.