Fujiko

Audience Award, 2026 Udine Far East Film Festival
Best Feature Film, 2026 New York Asian Film Festival
Nippon Cinema Award, 2026 Nippon Connection Film Festival

In 1970s and 80s Shizuoka, a young woman is determined to raise her infant daughter as a single mom after being mistreated by her husband’s family and infantilized by her own blood relatives.

This “70% true” story based on the experiences of director Taichi Kimura’s mother follows Fujiko (Yuki Katayama) as she struggles to find steady work and reliable childcare for her daughter Mari. She is met not with empathy and compassion, but insulting questions about why she left her husband—as if she brought a rigid patriarchy upon herself, as if she wanted to sacrifice all of herself while getting nothing in return. Facing constant judgment and shaming, Fujiko is not a stereotypically sympathetic heroine/superheroine; she is messy, frustrating, and real, befitting the gritty rock soundtrack that propels her along her journey.

Resolving to be anything but a damsel-in-distress, Fujiko employs scrappy survival skills and a knack for storytelling to find work, including as cook to the yakuza. True success is not usually a solo effort, however. As Fujiko discovers, it takes a chosen family—and a whole lot of noodles—to make sure some of us don’t fall through the cracks.

– Wilda Wong