Expired September 15, 2022 6:59 AM
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"Lunar Maria" is the story of a family who believed there were once 

seas on the moon. Shizuko, the protagonist, cares for her mother-in-law suffering from advanced dementia. She is struggling to revive her former loving relationship with her mother-in-law who has even forgotten her name but unable to do so, physically and mentally exhausted and isolated from her surroundings. We confronted the desperate reality of long-term care.


Our country, with its emphasis on market logic, has a long history of neglecting the external costs of disposing with waste products. The consciousness of the times is unintentionally directed at people, and old people are stripped even of their dignity. The labor of nurturing human life and assisting with death is dealt with dismissively, revealing all the limits of a system that keeps calling for a sustainable society.


How can we recapture the feeling of irreplaceability of the "elders " who have lived through so many changes? We worked on this movie with the desire to find hope in the ordinary bonds of a family who believed that there used to be seas on the moon, relying on the faint moonlight to illuminate the darkness and believing “happiness” is waiting at the other end.



昔の人は月に海があると思ってたんだって。月にも生き物がいるって

信じてたんだろうね。


都内の一軒家。結月静子は、5年前に家を出て行った夫(豊)の母・晴江と二人で暮らしている。晴江は3年前から認知症を患い、静子の名前すら覚えていない。行方不明の豊を探し徘徊を繰り返す晴江。

静子は義母の介護に追われる日々を送っていた。そんなある日、近所で盗難事件が発生。怪我を負った窃盗犯・小暮大輝は結月家に身を隠すが、静子に発見される。叫ぼうとする静子の口を封じる大輝。

必死に抵抗する静子。二人に近づいて行く晴江にも身の危険が迫る。

しかし彼女が発した意外な一言から、結月家に一筋の光が差し込み始める・・・

  • Year
    2021
  • Runtime
    45 minutes
  • Language
    Japanese
  • Country
    Japan
  • Note
    English Subtitles
  • Director
    Koji Hagiuda
  • Screenwriter
    Akiko Iwase
  • Cast
    Akiko Iwase / Yoko Yano / Takanobu Kaneko