Firefly Dreams

(Ichiban utsukushî natsu)

by John Williams

Japan

Director: John Williams

Script: John Williams

Assistant: Masaki Takada

Cinematographer: Yoshinobu Hayano

Music: Paul Rowe

Sound: Akihiko Suzuki

Cast: Maho, Tsutomu Niwa, Etsuko Kimata, Atsushi Ono, Yoshie Minami, Chie Miyajima, Kyoko Kanemoto, Sadayasu Yamakawa

Production: Kazuaki Kaneda, Martin B.Z. Rycroft, John Williams, Brian Hulse

100 meter films production
3-24-21-1115 Osu
Naka-ku - Nagoya-shi
Aichi-ken
Japan 460-0011
Mail: [email protected]

Year: 2001

35 mm, Colour, 101 min
OV Japanese
Electronic Subtitles

Unreleased

Teenager Naomi is a rebel living in Nagoya. She finds her studies dull, and her relationship with her mother is getting all the more aggressive that her mother runs away with another man. Her father sends her off to his elder sister’s to spend summer in the remote countryside of Horaicho, in central Japan. Naomi hates working in the restaurant, so her aunt asks her to look after Mrs Koide, an elderly relative living alone and losing her memory. Naomi likes Mrs Koide’s dignified manners and her stories of the past, she also finds out that the old lady has a surprising secret. The frail woman in kimono was once a much sought after beauty who was the cause of gossip for her romantic forays against social convention. She even took acting in a film, Valley of fireflies. Naomi gets closer to Mrs Koide, while, at the same time, she is having a romance with the restaurant delivery boy. Despite their difference in age, Mrs Koide steadying presence gives Naomi the strength to go on.