Summer’s Camera (2025 | South Korea | 82 minutes | Divine Sung)

Entering her freshman year at an all-girls school, Summer finally gets the urge to pick up her camera again when an attractive older soccer player catches her eye, causing her heart and camera’s shutter to flutter. Having inherited the classic film camera from her deceased father, the Nikon SLR still had his film in the chamber. Having the film developed opens an unanticipated window on her dad’s life, some parallels with her own, and an unlikely confidant.

Divine Sung brings a chaste delicacy and soft focus deliberation to the coming-of-age drama. At times, it feels a bit like Perfect Days: the Next Generation in its quiet contemplation of character and interest in the small but meaningful moments that comprise a life. From shallow depth-of-field portraits, widescreen contemplations of nature, or moody shots of the city at night, the cinematography is fittingly lovely for a movie centered around photography. While some of the plotting around the first love is similarly shallow, the story of coming to terms with grief and sexuality captures an elusive target by its final frame.

Summer’s Camera plays as part of SIFF’s FutureWave Program.

• THURSDAY, MAY 22 – SIFF Cinema Uptown – 3:30 PM
• Available to stream: May 26-June 1
  Director/Screenwriter Divine Sung scheduled to attend.

Cloud (2024 | Japan | 124 minutes | Kiyoshi Kurosawa)

eBay is serious business in Japan, or at least in Kiyoshi (“not related”) Kurosawa’s dark tale of an internet reseller in Tokyo. When we meet Ryôsuke (Masaki Suda), he’s playing hardball with some rubes, flashing piles of cash to take a bunch of deadstock healthcare devices off their hands for far less than sticker price. By the close of the day, staring dead-eyed into a flashing computer monitor in the back of his cluttered apartment, he’ll have flipped them for a hundred-fold profit.

It’s no wonder, then, he has no interest in advancement at his dull factory job, much to the confused consternation of his supportive manager. Whether it’s board games with an old friend or moving merchandise, the guy seemingly can’t help himself from tripping into wins. Soon enough, he packs up his business and his airhead girlfriend with a taste for the finer things to a roomy lake house where he can focus on moving goods of questionable authenticity full time. Far from an idyllic getaway, the isolation compromises his relationship, increases his exposure, and ushers in an increasingly violent second act.

When we come to see the people on the wrong side of Ryôsuke’s deals, the endgame becomes a mousetrap of revenge and absurd violence. Kurosawa stages the retribution like an unending Rube Goldberg device, even when the plotting doesn’t entirely make sense, the setups are sublimely staged with a phenomenally grimy look and feel, and one can’t help but cheer when a third act revelation inexplicably brings supreme competence back into the fold.

SUNDAY, MAY 25 – SIFF Cinema Uptown – 4:30 PM