Egoist

Q&A with Daishi Matsunaga and Ryohei Suzuki, who will be honored with the 2023 NYAFF Screen International Rising Star Asia Award

A poignant story of love, loss, self-sacrifice, and discovery, Daishi Matsunaga’s heralded new film is inspired by the seminal semi-autobiographical novel by Makoto Takayama. The first Japanese production with both an LGBTQ+ inclusive director and an intimacy choreographer, Egoist features two of Japan’s biggest movie stars in very compromising positions. Suffused with delicacy and naturalism, the film completely sidesteps melodrama in its beautifully humanist depiction of gay and maternal relationships. Ryohei Suzuki (HK: Hentai Kamen, Last of the Wolves) nearly sparkles with elegance, taste, and personal charm as the protagonist, Kosuke. A wealthy magazine editor with a close circle of artistic, bon vivant friends, Kosuke is surprised when he falls for his new personal trainer, Ryuta (Hio Miyazawa). A financially strapped high-school dropout, Ryuta juggles a number of jobs to support his doting single mother. And then the unthinkable happens. A Strand Releasing release.