KAGURA
‘Kagura’ given Best Music Award!
This movie has received Best Music Award in Tokyo Youth Movie Festival!
PROJECT
‘Kagura’ is a musical movie produced by Tsunku as the general
supervisor coupled with Miho Nishihata as the director.
“Kagura / Moment to Dance” is a musical movie produced by Tsunku as the general supervisor coupled with Miho Nishihata as the director. You should watch this move now that a dawn for the pandemic has been seen. Its background is a world where music has been lost because of a virus, which would remind you of disasters from the pandemic around us.
“Music” and “Mai (Japanese dancing)”, however, would upend this gloomy world.
want you to feel the wonders of “entertainment” and “expressions” in it! While music itself is fantastic, I’ve strived to make you feel “the power of images” in a medium called movie, too.
Its worldview is mostly based on Taisho Era / Showa Era of Japan (approximately in 1920s – 1940s), where ambiences of many eras, Occidental & Oriental arts and attires have been merged.
STORY
In a world where voiced connections among people have been lost for a viral, infectious disease, with “music” itself gone among all, a girl named Mana (the heroine) will over time figure out the force that lies in music, along with Teru, a girl she admires like her own elder sister.
The world in 2XXX has become “one without music”.
An infectious disease that spread about 250 years has totally changed people’s lives.
The state has set strict rules as measures against infection: covering one’s face, no going out in non-emergency, avoiding getting too close to each other, etc. (too strict a social distancing as a whole).
Such an age has lasted for about 250 years….
The disease itself is gone but the good and old days when people could talk face-on-face (in person) with emotions exposed and sometime sing & dance with overflowing joy have been rendered a stark secret of the past.
The state has strictly persecuted those who try to know a secret called “music”,
where people are living just for the sake of living, without any joy or meaning.
Two street children, Mana and Teru, are living on in such a chaotic world.
Mana is a girl very agile and energetic like a monkey, living her life like a thief to protect her childhood friend,
Teru, whom she loves like her own elder sister Meanwhile, Mana is a girl whose facial expression does not change at all as if she has flatly refused the surrounding world, without any emotion such as joy, anger, sorrow or fun like a plant (as if in a vegetative state). They are struggling, literally daily, to lead their lives.
One day, they see an old woman hunching over at a corner of the town.
This fatal encounter with her will lead them to a secret they haven’t imagined of in their lives, ever.
CAST
Mana
（SHURI)
A girl very agile and energetic like a monkey A street child that lives her life like a thief to protect her childhood friend, Teru, whom she loves like her own elder sister
Teru
（Haruka Maeda)
A girl, another street child, whose facial expression does not change at all as if she has flatly refused the surrounding world, without any emotion such as joy, anger, sorrow or fun like a plant (as if in a vegetative state)
Mai hime
（Kurumi Nakayama)
Old woman
（Mari Hasamoto)
Head of MPO
（Shun Kotoku)
Patrolling MPO
（Shota Chiyo)
MPO at check gate
（Hiroto Murata)
Shop owner
（Chabimachi)
Girl in the town
（Anju Koyama)
Narration
（Aoi Mochizuki)
Crew
Director
Miho Nishibata
She has been engrossed in the world of images since she was a college student and is extensively working as director / editor for image / video advertisements such as TV commercials and corporate advocacies. Tapping her first-rate feminine senses, she “slices out” (takes out to most effectively emphasize) images in her unique perspectives. Her belief: “Expression (art)” is about “paths of your life” and among all “breathing”. In 2022, she directed and released her first movie, “Homatsu Syojo (Girl ephemeral like a bubble)”, which has received 20 awards around the world, including Best Movie Award in Rome Short-Movie Festival. This time, she has produced a movie about music, “Kagura”, her first challenge in a project for youth. In 2023, she is now in France to further expand her scopes of art.
Scriptwriter
Norihiko Kozuru
She made a debut as scriptwriter for a drama series, “Handsome Dining Table of Shirayuri (Lily) Brothers”. Her other records include: a drama titled “Mr. Ueno in Love Hotel” (season 1, 2 for Fuji TV), a movie titled “Aooni (Blue Demon)”, an MV titled “You Are Actually Me Myself” with its heroine Atsuko Maeda, a famous actress and an MV titled “Love Song” of Funky Monkey Babies. She has obtained Master’s Degree of Engineering in Graduate School, Fukui University of Technology and now is working on her Doctor’s Degree for the field. She also is an adjunct lecturer in Faculty of Movie, Kyoto University of the Arts, etc., while producing a long movie, a tie-up between South Korea and Japan as its director.
Production
Theme Song
‘Kagura mau toki niha’
Lyrics:Tsunku♂ Composition/Arrangement: Masamichi Nagai
Komomo Ikuta
Hinata Fukusima
Ayana Takeda
