With Millennium Actress, Kon has delivered a love letter to post-war Japanese cinema that also serves as a poignant meditation on the role cinema plays in our lives.

Satoshi Kon directed only four feature films before his death in 2010, and Millennium Actress (2001) is his most subtle. Loosely based on the lives of actresses Setsuko Hara (1920–2015) and Hideko Takamine (1924–2010), the film features a documentary film crew interviewing retired acting legend Chiyoko Fujiwara. As Chiyoko tells her life story, his personal life, history, and cinema intertwine, resulting in a unique cinematic experience. 

Unlike the previous film, Kon was given much more creative freedom for Millennium Actress, including hiring composer Susumu Hirasawa, whom he had long admired, to compose the film’s score. As Kon later recounted, the original idea for Millennium Actress came from his conversation with producer Taro Maki that they wanted to make a film that looked like a trompe l'oeil, a very convincing optical illusion.

Prior to the film, the short film I like you by Dewi HARTONO, Dex RUBIO, Carla BERNARD, Héléne KSIEZAC, Léo MALATERRE, Yotam GALPAZ, Akin ADUNIYI, Yuxin LI en Eyal NAVON will be shown.