Japanese director Lisa Takeba (whose most well-known works are The Pinkie, which debuted in the International Film Festival Rotterdam’s Bright Future section in 2014, and the horror film based on the manga of the same name Signal 100, which was presented in a premiere in the 2019 Sitges Film Festival) is scheduled to shoot Children of the River, a Japanese-Italian co-production which explores themes of identity and loss through the story of two twin sisters.

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Children of the River, which is due to be shot in the summer of 2025, tells the story of Ryoka, a 19-year-old art student who is struggling with feelings of inferiority vis-a-vis her twin sister Kaya, who has died unexpectedly. As she wrestles with the pain of her loss, Ryoka forges a bond with 17-year-old Eito who had feelings for her deceased sister.

The film’s producers are Shozo Ichiyama of Fourier Film in partnership with Nagoya TV and Parsifal Reparato for Italy via his firm Antropica (which produced the documentary She in 2023, directed by Reparato himself). This will be the first project to take advantage of the co-production agreement between Italy and Japan signed back in August. Children of the River, which has a budget of 550,000 dollars, took part in the Tokyo Gap-Financing Market which unspooled during the TIFF COM - Tokyo International Film Festival (30 October – 1 November) in order to find other partners for the 220,000 dollar-shortfall in its funding.

Reparato claimed he chose the project because it tells a universal story rich in spirituality, exploring man’s relationship with nature. The film promises to enthral Italian audiences and western viewers more generally, because its roots are firmly anchored in European culture through its references to Greek mythology.

The director has actually described the project as a “landscape painting”, with the natural environment playing a central role and a subtle environmental stance conveyed through its visual language. The blue and greenish tones sought by Lisa Takeba will come courtesy of Aziz Zhambakiyev, who previously collaborated with the filmmaker as director of photography on The Horse Thieves. Roads of Time, which was co-produced by Japan and Kazakistan in 2020. Post-production, for its part, will be wholly managed in Italy, as Takeba has confirmed.