Mia Nie

Isao Takahata's masterpiece repurposes the shapeshifting tanuki of Japanese folklore into an amorphous parable for urbanisation, gentrification, indigeneity, and communities in resistance in incredibly moving and expansive terms. So acutely charming and inventive that the enormity of its tragedy sneaks up on you. Takahata is a humanistic genius and nowhere is this more apparent than this film.