Veteran director Yoji Yamada’s drama Nagasaki: Memories of My Son has been selected as Japan’s contender for the foreign-language Oscar awards race.
A committee of the Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan chose it from 16 candidate movies.
Set in the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, the film stars Sayuri Yoshinaga as a midwife in who, three years after her son (Kazunari Ninomiya) died in the blast, receives a visit from his ghost.
Released in Japan in December 2015, the film won two prizes from the Japan Academy: A best actor award for Ninomiya and a best supporting actress award for Haru Kuroki as the son’s still-loyal girlfriend.
Yamada, who is 82, is not new to the Oscars: his 2002 period drama, The Twilight Samurai, received an Oscar nomination at the 76th Academy Awards, but did not win.
