DESERT OF NAMIBIA Opens May 16/21 🦒
Director Yoko Yamanaka in person in New York City and Los Angeles!
Starting this Friday, we’re bringing Yoko Yamanaka’s sophomore feature Desert of Namibia (2024) to select theatres across the United States in Canada — with director Yamanaka in person in New York and Los Angeles. We also picked up her DIY debut film Amiko (2017) — screening it alongside Desert of Namibia whenever possible.
21-year-old Kana (rising star Yuumi Kawai) works a disaffected job at a beauty salon, where she bristles against the beauty expectations placed on women her age. Her erratic mood and default to self-destruct impacts all of her relationships, as moments of levity erupt into violence and optimism simmers to despair. Bored with her slavish boyfriend, she finds another; the novel excitement of it all soon devolving into a volatile predicament. Uncommitted and trapped in her own life, Kana slowly makes her way towards the inner desert of her emotions.
Alternating between claustrophobic blocking, ample zooms and expressive whip-pans brought together by dryly comedic editing and an intense actor’s direction, the sophomore effort from director Yoko Yamanaka (the youngest filmmaker to have a film selected at the Berlin International Film Festival with her 2017 debut Amiko) provides a frank and dynamic examination of womanhood and mental health in contemporary Japan. Inspired by the female protagonists of Yasuzo Masumura as much as the intense Cassavetes/Rowlands collaboration, Yamanaka breaks out with a work of stark confrontational honesty.
We’ve been following Yamanaka’s work for years now and it’s a great honour to bring her to a wider North American audience. Two features in, she has established herself as a remarkably coherent and bold voice, intent on challenging the way women of her generation are portrayed on screen — offering a body-of-work that radiates with a rare kind of urgency, honesty and risk-taking that is as rewarding as it is challenging.
Here’s what a few excellent people had to say about it:
“Yoko Yamanaka's Desert of Namibia is profoundly affecting; imbued with a calm, introverted cruelty; like a girl without a home standing on any Tokyo street corner saying to the world, ‘I don't understand!’” – Lou Ye (Suzhou River)
"I can hardly recall a more thrillingly contemporary piece of filmmaking."
– Edo Choi, Metrograph Journal
"[A] raw, unflinching performance. Desert of Namibia is just as much a showcase for Yuumi Kawai's considerable talents as The Worst Person in the World was for Renate Reinsve... You cannot tear your eyes away from her when she is on screen." – Lee Jutton, Film Inquiry
"[A] kinetic, mesmerizing performance."
– William Repass, Slant Magazine
“Elusive, Desert of Namibia is an ultra-melancholic slapstick comedy, a slow-burn vaudeville, a fantasy film without monsters or ghosts–or else entirely populated by monsters and ghosts, but with a seemingly everyday quality... About a generation's relationship to the world...”
– Jean-Michel Frodon, Slate (France)
“Kawai’s masterful, multilayered performance, which presents Kana more as willful and lost than born bad and raised wrong, both exposes and humanizes her.”
– Mark Schilling, Japan Times
Yoko will be in both New York and LA for Q&As:
New York
May 16 - Moderator: Ariana King (Senior Editor of Far-Near)
May 17 - Moderator: Jawni Han (Writer)
May 20 - Moderator: Edo Choi (Metrograph)
Los Angeles
May 21 - Moderator: India Donaldson (Director, Good One)
May 24 - Moderator: Winnie Cheung (Director, Residency)
All dates below. Keep an eye out on our full theatrical listings for updates.
05/16+ — Desert of Namibia, Metrograph, New York, NY*
05/16+ — Desert of Namibia, TIFF Lightbox, Toronto, ON
05/17 — Amiko, Metrograph, New York, NY
05/17+ — Desert of Namibia, Cinéma Moderne, Montréal, QC
05/21+ — Desert of Namibia, Laemmle (Claremont 5, Glendale, Santa Monica, Town Center 5, Newhall), Los Angeles, CA
05/22 — Amiko, American Cinematheque (Los Feliz 3), Los Angeles CA
05/23+ — Desert of Namibia, VIFF CentreVancouver, BC
05/30+ — Desert of Namibia, North Park Theater, Buffalo, NY
06/01 — Amiko + Desert of Namibia, Paradise Theater, Toronto, ON
06/5+ — Desert of Namibia, Austin Film Society, Austin, TX
Our Limited Edition of edition of Lav Diaz’s Batang West Side is down to 400 units (from 1000)! Get it while it lasts at Vinegar Syndrome. The regular edition is identical in every way, save for the slipcover, from the theatrical poster by Tom Estrera III.
It is also still screening in theatres, all 301 minutes of it:
18/5+18/6 — The Cinematheque, Vancouver, BC — Tickets
05/31 — Jersey City Free Public Library, Jersey City, NJ — Free!
06/01 — Cinéma Moderne, Montréal, QC — Tickets
What’s Else Is New?
✨ We kicked off this year with our 3rd Masashi Yamamoto release, Wonderful Paradise, his latest from 2020: an absurdist spin on the “unwanted guest” scenario.
✨ How’s your relationship with your father-in-law? Don’t forget to check out our edition of Mike de Leon’s timeless true crime classic, Kisapmata (1981).
🪐 It’s a Canadian summer for Daisuke Miyazaki: Plastic returns to screens on May 22, 2025 at the TIFF Lightbox as part of their monthly TIFF Next Wave series (dedicated to youth films) and Winnipeg’s Dave Barber Cinematheque is running a retrospective from May 30 including Plastic, Videphobia and Yamato (California). Get your tickets !
With love,
—Kani Releasing