Two lovers, two timelines, one family secret that refuses to stay buried.
Akashi is a multigenerational love story told across parallel timelines. Kana, a struggling artist in Vancouver, returns to Tokyo for her grandmother’s funeral, feeling out of place after ten years abroad. As she reflects on a secret only she and her grandmother shared—that her grandfather had another lover—she unexpectedly reconnects with an old love, Hiro. Intercut with the past, which traces her grandfather’s decades-long affair, Kana confronts hidden family truths and begins to navigate the complexities of love, sacrifice, and the choices that shape a life between desire and duty.
Acting
Mayumi Yoshida directs herself with devastating restraint.
Cinematography
Vancouver's grey mirrors Tokyo's neon—two homes, neither whole.
Editing
Parallel timelines dissolve into each other like memory itself.
Director
Mayumi Yoshida
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Mayumi Yoshida wrote the screenplay during her own grandmother's decline, filming began three months after the funeral.
The grandfather's lover Wakako is played by Chieko Matsubara, a 1960s Nikkatsu star—casting her rewrites Japanese cinema's own history of tragic romance.
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