And Your Bird Can Sing (KOTATSU screening)
March 7 @ 7:00 pm - 8:50 pm EST
Details »
And Your Bird Can Sing
きみの鳥はうたえる
Saturday, March 7, 7:00PM (ET)
Doors open 6:30PM | Film Screening | In-Person | Innis Town Hall
Directed by MIYAKE Sho • 2018 • Romance, Drama • 106 minutes • Presented in Japanese with English subtitles • Trailer
Based on SATO Yasushi’s novel of the same title, the film depicts a love triangle and captures the magic and melancholy of a summer. The main character, « Me » (played by EMOTO Tasuku, who won Best Actor at the Kinema Junpo Awards for his performance), works in a bookshop in the suburb of a town in the north of Japan. He shares a flat with a friend named Shizuo (SOMETANI Shota). Sachiko (ISHIBASHI Shizuka) is « Me »’ s colleague from the bookshop. She is in a relationship with an older man, the manager of the bookshop, but feels attracted to « Me » and leave the manager. When Shizuo meets Sachiko, he too starts to like her… Depicted like a breeze in the heat of Summer, the relationship between these three young Japanese is built on a delicate balance of love and friendship.
This screening is a part of our annual winter film showcase, KOTATSU 2026: Japanese Cinema at Innis Town Hall.
Free admission. Registration Required.
Director Profile:
Born in 1984 in Sapporo, Hokkaido, MIYAKE Sho (三宅 唱) is a Japanese filmmaker whose work has garnered significant international recognition, particularly at major European film festivals. He completed the elementary fiction course at the Film School of Tokyo and began making feature films after graduating from university.
His breakthrough feature Playback (2012) was selected for the International Competition at the Locarno Film Festival. And Your Bird Can Sing (2018) screened in the Forum section of the Berlin International Film Festival, where it received strong critical acclaim both internationally and in Japan, and was named one of Kinema Junpo’s Best Ten Japanese Films of the Year.
Miyake’s next two feature films — Small, Slow but Steady (2022) and All the Long Nights (2024) — both premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival and won Kinema Junpo Award for Best Film of the Year. Most recently, Two Seasons, Two Strangers (2025) won the top prize in the International Competition at the Locarno Film Festival, further cementing Miyake’s reputation as one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary Japanese cinema.
