Finding a wallet stuffed with cash has to be the classic moral dilemma, and it is such an incident that befalls Izumi, the high school girl protagonist at the beginning of Japanese indie film About the Pink Sky. Her friend Haruko insists that they return the wallet because the owner, a wealthy teenager named Koki, looks cute, but not before Izumi lends  a large portion of it to a down on his luck acquaintance. When Koki discovers the IOU addressed to Izumi in his wallet he press gangs her and the now infatuated Haruko into helping him to create a newspaper filled only with good news to cheer up a friend in hospital. But as with all the characters in the film he is holding back something about himself.

The film is sumptuously shot in crisp black and white with a shallow depth of field that really makes the many close-up shots pop and Keiichi Kobayashi directs with an assured lightness of touch that is astonishing considering this is his debut film. With its lo-fi aesthetic, shifts in tone from humour to melancholy and focus on the minutiae of human life the film expertly mixes the atmosphere of an American mumblecore movie with the charm and wit of a Japanese indie comedy.

 Dean Bowman

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Practical Information

All screenings at Apollo Cinema Piccadilly Circus
19 Lower Regent Street
SW1Y 4LR
London
www.appollocinemas.com

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