Look Back

Official Selection, 2026 Venice Film Festival
Official Selection, 2026 Toronto International Film Festival
Official Selection, 2026 Busan International Film Festival

All the students and teachers at Fujino’s elementary adore the comic strips she draws for the school newspaper. One day, a mysterious classmate Kyomoto contributes comics with texture and detail beyond her years, stealing some of Fujino’s shine. When Fujino finally meets Kyomoto in person, she discovers that her rival is actually her biggest fan, and the two of them embark on a friendship that becomes a years-long creative collaboration, before life opens other doors.

Adapted from Tatsuki Fujimoto’s acclaimed web manga of the same name, LOOK BACK is director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s tribute to the consummate artist: the lifelong student of form and technique, the obsessive poring over a work for months. As only a live-action adaptation can, LOOK BACK watches as the artist’s hand inks, erases, and turns a line into a tableau. Just as memorable are the sounds of pen scraping paper, growing ever more confident as the seasons go by. Kore-eda can’t resist capturing the cherry blossoms and snow-capped mountains of Akita prefecture, but it’s also to show how Fujino and Kyomoto translate their external environment into their manga, as only teenagers discovering the world can.

While best known for gritty realist parables like Nobody Knows and Shoplifters (SDAFF ’18), Kore-eda’s gentle dramas of family and friendship like Our Little Sister and After the Storm (SDAFF ’16) remain fan favorites, and LOOK BACK has all the unspoken love, cozy slices of life, and effortless magic of those modern classics.

– Brian Hu