52nd edition of New Directors/New Films
Festival&Award
Fools on Fire
黄泉芝居 よみ芝居
Japan｜2025｜Drama, History, Fantasy｜137min
Director: DIANA DAI
Screenwriter: DIANA DAI
Producer: DIANA DAI
Executive Producer: YUXIN YANG, SHO KANAMORI, NOZOMU HASHIMOTO
Cinematographer: SHUHEI TAKAHASHI, AYUTA YUZAWA
Editor: DIANA DAI, MITSUHIRO HONDA
Art Director: SHIYAO WU, BELLA ZHU
Costume Designer: EIJI TAKAHASHI
Sound: SHOU KANAMORI, TAKAKI YAM, NAN ZHANG
Music: HIROYUKI TAKAHASHI
Cast：
KOU IWAMOTO as Yo-chan
TENMA AIDA as Lily
KONOSUKE FURUYA as Kobayashi
导演：戴雨林
编剧：戴雨林
制片人：戴雨林
执行制片: 杨雨鑫 金森翔 橋本希
摄影指导：髙橋周平、湯沢鮎太
剪辑：戴雨林、本田広大
美术指导：吴诗瑶、朱美霖
服装: 高橋英治
声音：金森翔、山川貴基、张楠
音乐：髙橋洋行
演员：
岩本洸（饰 Yo-chan）
愛田天麻（饰 Lily）
古矢航之介（饰 Kobayashi）
Synopsis
In his final moments, the aging Ishibashi encounters his younger self amidst the ruins. In an instant, memory and reality intertwine on a theatrical stage where past friends and lovers reappear one by one. The dreamlike drama of youth, entangled with passionate desires and the bloodshed of violent revolution, unfolds once more like a revolving lantern before his eyes.
Director’s Note
“Fools on Fire” is not just a film about the past—it is a film about memory, illusion, and the ghosts of our own ideals.I have always been drawn to stories that exist on the fragile boundary between reality and performance, truth and myth. My filmmaking has been deeply influenced by the avant-garde movements of Japan’s Nouvelle Vague and underground theater, as well as the works of Lou Ye, whose filmsz—often silenced by censorship—dared to confront the repressed wounds of history. Fools on Fire is my attempt to reconstruct the late 1960s and early 1970s, a time when revolution was both a political reality and an artistic gesture.
Diana Dai
Diana Dai is a Chinese female filmmaker and screenwriter based in Japan. She graduated from Zhejiang University in June 2019 with a degree in Broadcasting and later obtained an MFA in Film Production from Hong Kong Baptist University. She is expected to complete her graduate studies at Ritsumeikan University in March 2025 and will join GOKKO Inc. as a visual creator.
Her short films have been awarded and screened at festivals such as the Beijing International Short Film Festival and Kyoto Student Film Festival, etc. She was selected for the HAF Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum. And her first feature film, Fools on Fire received funding from the Housen Cultural Foundation.