The University of Pittsburgh's Asian Studies Center will present the 1998 Japanese movie After Life (ワンダフルライフ) on September 2, the first in a three-part series of Hirokazu Koreeda films. Wikipedia provides a summary:
A small, mid-20th century social-service-style structure is a way station between life and death. Every Monday, a group of recently deceased people check-in: the social workers in the lodge ask them to go back over their life and choose one single memory to take into the afterlife. They are given just a couple of days to identify their happiest memory, after which the workers design, stage and film them. In this way, the souls will be able to re-experience this moment for eternity, forgetting the rest of their life.Registration for the free 7:00 pm event is required. The next two films in the series are 2004's Nobody Knows (誰も知らない) on October 14 with Dr. Charles Exley of the Department of East Asian Languages & Literatures and 2018's Shoplifters (万引き家族).
Twenty-two souls of different ages and backgrounds arrive and are received by the counsellors, who explain them their situation. Lengthy interviews take place in the lodge, with each person having different perspectives of their lives, some being more reluctant in indicating a significant memory.
