With the help of a homeless girl he meets, he explores the country and hanami (the appreciation of cherry blossoms).Īll proceeds will go to Japan Recovery Aid. When tragedy strikes unexpectedly, Rudi decides it's time to fulfill his wife's dream of visiting Japan. When Trudi finds out that her husband Rudi is terminally ill, she conceals this information from him and instead head to Berlin to visit their adult children, who they soon find are too busy for them. Doris Dörrie's homage to Yasujiro Ozu's acclaimed Tokyo Story follows an elderly German couple.
It'll be accompanied by the 2008 German film Cherry Blossoms. The short documentary captures how survivors began the process of recovery from the disaster amidst the blossoming of the cherished sakura. Waste Land director Lucy Walker received her second shared Oscar nomination for the 39-minute "The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom". Demonstrating our connection to Japan, the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival, which celebrates the sakura trees given to the city as a gift from Japan, runs until April 28. Both films are united by the theme of the sakura, or the Japanese cherry blossom. Tonight (April 12), the Vancity Theatre (1181 Seymour Street) is presenting a special benefit screening for Japan (6:30 p.m.) featuring two films. Those efforts have not ended, and Japanese citizens are still trying to recover. This side of the Pacific responded with outpourings of donations and relief fundraising efforts. Not only had the island nation been struck by the most powerful, destructive earthquake the country has ever known, but the 9.0-magnitude earthquake triggered devastating tsunami waves and nuclear crises. It was a year ago the world received the shocking news that Japan had been hit by an unprecedented triple-whammy of disasters.