Japan Now Special Strand

The first full-length feature by veteran television director Naoko Nobutomo is a personal documentary chronicling the enduring love, resilience and struggles of her nonagenarian parents in Kure, Hiroshima, as her mother’s Alzheimer’s-related dementia gradually worsens.

With an abundance of footage taken over several years, Nobutomo interweaves direct documentation with intimate home movies of her parents; not only her support for them, but their support towards her during her own battle with breast cancer.

A small film that was a surprise box office hit purely through word-of-mouth, I Go Gaga, My Dear opened in one small Sapporo cinema and expanded to 70 screens nationwide for over three months. At times a difficult, but pertinent, watch, the film offers space for reflection on life and family ties in both joy and despair; a sentimental and honest documentary of the impacts of dementia on loved ones.

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