Introduction

"NIAGARA" 2014 27min Japanese Color
Director : Shuko Yamanouchi
Cast : Taka Takeda / Daiki Matsubara / Hiroko Iio
Yamame is a girl who has grown up in a group home and is now 18. One of the staff at the home begins to gently break to her the details of what happened in her family when she was still little. Yamame's grandfather is currently on death row for clubbing her parents to death with a bat and also trying to kill her and her grandmother as they tried to flee. But when her past is suddenly laid open before her, Yamame accepts it with a giggle as if it pertained to someone else and is neither bewildered by the truth nor tries to deny it. She goes to live with her grandmother who has dementia, and with the support of the young man who cares for her grandmother, she gradually settles into her new circumstances. This is a touching look at how a girl on the verge of becoming an adult adjusts to some great changes in her life in a laid-back, gradual, and flexible way.