To Sleep So as to Dream(Yumemiru yoni nemuritai)

The first 10 minutes of Hayashi Kaizo’s cultclassic may fool you into thinking that it is a noirmystery taken straight from the silent film era.However, this story of an egg-loving privatedetective and his assistant’s search for a silentera film star’s missing daughter soon becomesincreasingly bizarre as red herrings and vagueclues lead them further down the rabbit hole.Shooting at the age of 29 with zero professionalfilm set experience and a meagre budget, Hayashi made a miraculous piece of independentfilmmaking that is also a cinephile’s loving reinterpretationof silent era film noir by way of David Lynch and Obayashi Nobuhiko.

Yokohama Film Festival: Best Independent Film and Best New Director