Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac creates a unique experience for the audience with its blend of Japanese and American culture.
The film, directed by Hans Canosa, is about a girl who loses her memory after falling down the stairs. About 40 per cent of its dialogue is in English, the rest is in Japanese.
Canosa, a rising star on the American movie scene, won the Special Jury Prize at the Tokyo International Film Festival 2005 for Conversations with Other Women. In Conversations, he made innovative use of the split screen, allowing viewers to follow the key characters simultaneously.
Canosa teamed up for the third time with fellow Harvard University graduate Gabrielle Zevin for Memoirs. Zevin wrote the story and screenplay.
The film begins at an international high school in Tokyo, where Naomi Sukuse (Maki Horikita) tumbles down the stairs and hits her head. Luckily, she regains consciousness on the way to hospital, but cannot remember the past four years of her life.
Her most recent memory is a conversation with a handsome chap, Yuji Miwa (Kenichi Matsuyama), in the ambulance that took her to hospital.