The Ozu Diaries. 2025. USA. Written and directed by Daniel Raim. With Yasujirō Ozu, Kogo Noda, Wim Wenders, Kyoko Kagawa, Kiyoshi Kurosawa. New York premiere. DCP courtesy The Film Collaborative. In Japanese, English, Mandarin, French; English subtitles. 139 min.
The Ozu Diaries leaves you profoundly moved by a singular artist’s dedication to his craft, smarter about how movies are made, and hungering to return to his films once again. Which is why, following its New York premiere, we present a special screening of Yasujirō Ozu’s final masterpiece, An Autumn Afternoon. When Ozu died at 60 on December 12, 1963, some 32 diaries spanning three decades of his life were uncovered, diaries that according to the historian Donald Richie revealed the Japanese film master’s enthusiasm for Hollywood movies (Scarface, It Happened One Night), his favorite foods (pork cutlet, trout), and his favorite spots on the fashionable Ginza (the pastry shop Candy and a bar named L’Espoir). Drawing on these intimately quotidian entries, with their characteristic warmth and humor, as well as on Ozu’s more sober wartime notebooks, correspondence, interviews, photographs, and never-before-seen home movies, the Academy Award–nominated filmmaker Daniel Raim (The Man on Lincoln’s Nose) has created a portrait of astonishing depth and tenderness. Beyond Ozu’s own words and images, Raim has also elicited illuminating observations from contemporary filmmakers who represent the legacy of his cinema: Kyōko Kagawa, Wim Wenders, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Tsai Ming-Liang, and Luc Dardenne. Rare is the documentary portrait of a legend that goes beyond mere hagiography, and this one surely stands out.