Tanaka is a 38-year-old salaryman who finds his adult life unfulfilling. When he revisits his old school for its 50th anniversary, his back is struck by a rubber ball. When he turns, he is surprised to see the person who threw the ball is his first love, the mercilessly sarcastic and sparky Kanda Minami, aka “Kaminan”. Strangely, she is 18. Stranger still, Tanaka finds himself transported back to his high school days and reliving small scale madcap moments with Minami. As their mysterious reunion gradually revives the feelings he had been holding back since his adolescence, he begins to realise that there are things he has left undone…
Don’t Call Me Kaminan was made by IIZUKA Toshimitsu (Poetry Angel, OAFF2017) as a project to commemorate the 50th anniversary of his alma mater, Kamimizo Minami Senior High School but it features a universal story of facing one’s past self once again to gently move time that has stopped forward. [Jason MAHER]