Shinji Aoyama’s epic Eureka (2000) is widely regarded as a contemporary masterpiece. Following a violent bus hijacking, three survivors––a bus driver and two siblings––embark on a quiet journey across Japan’s southern landscape. Part road film, part unconventional family drama, Eureka reimagines the bounds of cinema at the turn of the century with disruptive force. Aoyama eschews a central narrative built around the spectacle of violence, and instead traces the quiet, fractured lives of his adrift characters. Koji Yakusho delivers a magnetic performance as the bus driver, leading his young companions on what Aoyama describes as “a voyage of resurrection.”

Although inspired by the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin gas attack, the film transcends its origins to evoke the spiritual drift of postwar Japan.

“Maybe you can regard my film as a live performance of psychedelic rock in the late 1960s. It's not religion, but in a sense it's similar––everyone's forgetting themselves, getting stoned, listening to a long performance. In a way it's my experiment––can I achieve this experience without drugs, just with the pictures and sounds of my film?” — Shinji Aoyama

The screening of Eureka will be introduced by Phuong Le, a Vietnamese film critic based in London. Her writing has appeared in The Guardian, Sight and Sound, and other publications. She is also a regular contributor to BBC Radio 3’s Free Thinking programme.