Venice 2026: Look Back, by Kore-eda, a splendid ode to friendship and manga

The director of A Family Affair portrays two young girls dreaming of becoming manga artists, in a great little film of incredible delicacy.

Hirokazu Kore-eda has never rested on his laurels – the most prestigious of which being the Palme d’Or he received in 2018 for A family affair. He continues to shoot tirelessly, at home in Japan, sometimes in France or South Korea, films but also series, works that touch us lastingly or, on the contrary, others that we forget quite quickly. One project chases the other. This year, this Stakhanovist will have presented two films in two major festivals: first the fable about AI Sheep In The Boxin May, in Cannes (and which will be released in France on December 23), then Look Back (announced for March 17, 2027), at the Venice Film Festival.

And this one, for sure, will leave a lasting imprint. This is a Kore-eda that we will not forget. It’s a very delicate film, magnificently conceived and executed, a small masterpiece of subtlety and finesse – we say “small” before “masterpiece”, because it’s the kind of film that we don’t want to suffocate by hugging it too tightly, so delicate that we wouldn’t want to overwhelm it with epithets that are too heavy to bear.

So let’s just say that it is the adaptation of the manga of the same name by Tatsuki Fujimoto (the author of Chainsaw Man), which had already been adapted into an anime presented at the Annecy festival in 2024 (and visible in France on Prime Video). It’s the story of two little girls who both dream of becoming manga artists. One, Fujino, is cheerful and sociable, the other, Kyomoto, introverted to the point of being home-schooled. Initially rivals within the school newspaper, they will unite their talents (Fujino has a boundless imagination, Kyomoto draws landscapes wonderfully) to design a manga together, a real one, at the cost of hours spent locked in their room, curled up on their work table, in a monastic devotion and a creative euphoria which will not only allow them to soon be recognized by the world of publishing, but also forge a very powerful friendship between them.