UK Premiere

Short Synopsis:

The inhabitants of a residential home for old ladies aged between 69 and 91 find their passions rekindled when a 75-year-old lothario with a charming manner and a colourful past moves into their accommodation.

Review:

One of the first women to make her name as a director in Japan who didn’t come from an acting background, Sachi Hamano is by far the most prolific, having made over 400 films since 1970. If the name is not familiar, it is undoubtedly because the bulk of her output has been in the clandestine field of the pink film – softcore sex films made for the theatrical market.

The caustic comedy drama Lily Festival, one of her few titles made for the mainstream market, also takes a look at female sexuality, in a less explicit though no less subversive fashion, portraying the seven inhabitants, aged between 69 and 91, of a retirement home for women. When Mr Miyoshi, a 75-year-old lothario with a charming manner and a colourful past, moves in among them, old passions are rekindled and jealousies aroused.

Overturning the clichés about Japanese women of a certain age, Lily Festival benefits from the lively performances of its cast of veteran actresses, including the star of Nikkatsu’s first Roman Porno film Kazuko Shirakawa, but it is the familiar face of former singer Mickey Curtis (Fires on the Plain, Fudoh: The Next Generation, The Laughing Frog) that steals the show, as all around succumb to his charms.

JS

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