Super Happy Forever

Nothing has changed, yet nothing is the same. That's what Sano feels when he returns with his best friend Miyata to the quiet Japanese coastal town where they stayed five years earlier. It was 2018 then, and it seemed like the two friends had all the time in the world. That is, until Sano met the cheerful young woman and his future wife Nagi in the hotel lobby. But Nagi passed away unexpectedly in her sleep. By returning to the place where they first met, Sano hopes to turn back time.

Super Happy Forever moves between past and present, often by connecting details with deeper truths. What begins as an attempt to hold onto the past quickly evolves into a search for meaning, and perhaps even a second chance. Kohei Igarashi's film, co-director of Takara, la nuit où j'ai nagé (FFG2017), focuses on the small, yet meaningful moments that shape our lives. By alternating seemingly everyday details with often unspoken emotions, the film succeeds in creating an intimate dialogue between past and present, between what is lost and what remains, between hope and despair.

With a delicate focus on the inner world of his characters, the Japanese filmmaker offers a poetic perspective on grief, healing, and the power of love. "Eternal happiness does not exist," Igarashi recently said during his appearance at the Venice Film Festival, "yet we are all searching for it." He discovered this himself when a friend of his, like Nagi, died in his sleep. He could not grasp what happened afterward. With his latest feature he wanted to explore how sudden sorrow can disrupt even the simplest moments of a person's life. Like in his earlier films Hold Your Breath Like a Lover and Takara, la nuit où j'ai nagé, Igarashi emphasises the quiet, often everyday moments that gain meaning through their emotional weight. In a minimalist and humanist style, the director captures the fragile human condition in a strikingly poetic way.