Adapted from Tsutomu Mizukami’s book, this gentle, thoughtful drama considers the importance of aligning one’s life with the natural world’s flavors and rhythms.
Director Yuji Nakae and Aki Takabatake from Momo Films will be in attendance to present the film and offer an audience Q&A following the screening!
Writer Tsutomu lives alone at a mountain cabin in Nagano. He collects fruits and mushrooms from the mountain. He also raises vegetables in a field. Everyday, he cooks his meals with these natural ingredients. Doing that, he can feel the flow of the seasons and he writes his book. Sometimes, his editor/girlfriend Machiko visits him. They cook with seasonal ingredients and eat together. They have a good time together. Tsutomu seems to be enjoying an easygoing life, but he is still unable to bury his dead wife's ashes in a grave. His wife died 13 years ago.
Momo Films is a Canadian boutique distribution company that represents quality Japanese films for Canadian distribution and the international marketplace.
"Fans of these offerings will probably appreciate Yuji Nakae’s “The Zen Diary,” a serene and nourishing adaptation of a 1978 nonfiction book by the late author Tsutomu Mizukami. In spirit and sensibility, it’s hard to imagine a more Japanese film, rooted in an unsentimental — and yes, very Zen — outlook." - The Japan Times
"Yuji Nakae directs a distinctly Japanese film, which follows the trademark style of local indies, while including elements that are inherent to the people of the island country. The meticulousness in the preparation of even the simplest thing is one of the elements both these aspects meet, with the explanation from the rooting of fruits and vegetables till the actual cooking and serving being the most appealing factor of the movie, also due to the exquisite way the whole procedure is captured on camera." - Asian Movie Pulse
