A Pale View of Hills, the debut novel by Nobel Prize-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro, is being adapted into a feature film. The film is currently in production and will be directed by Japanese director Ishikawa Kai.
The film is produced by U-Next, Japan's leading domestic streaming company. It is produced by Bunbuku in association with Number 9 Films, the British company headed by Stephen Woolley (The Crying Game) and Elizabeth Carlsen.
Gaga Corporation will distribute the film in Japan after filming is expected to wrap in the summer of 2025. No international sales agent or distributor has been signed.
Number Nine Films previously produced “Living,” an adaptation of Kurosawa Akira's classic “Ikiru,” written by Ishiguro and starring Bill Nighy, which received two Oscar nominations.
Gaga describes the film as: “A dark drama that unravels the secrets of a Japanese widow's memories as she moves between post-war Nagasaki, Japan in the 1950s, England in the 1980s, and the end of the Cold War.”
Published in 1982, A Pale View of Hills is about a middle-aged Japanese woman living a secluded life in England. When her younger daughter visits, the two discuss the suicide of the woman's older daughter and the woman's attempts to start a new life in a new country. Hirose Suzu (Our Little Sister and The Third Murder, both directed by Koreeda Hirokazu) plays the younger daughter.
Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki, Japan, and moved to the UK at the age of five with his parents. He was educated in the UK but spoke Japanese at home. In interviews, he has said that his dual cultural roots had a major influence on his writing. He has also said that the Japan depicted in his first two novels was largely fictional.
Ishiguro, a British citizen, became a literary phenomenon with his third novel, The Remains of the Day, set in upper-class Britain in 1989. The novel was adapted into a 1993 film directed by James Ivory and distributed by Columbia Pictures.
Director Ishikawa is best known for his films “Gukoroku – Traces of Sin” and “A Man,” which premiered at the Venice Film Festival. “What gave me the courage to take on this great novel were the author’s words, who said, ‘I have always thought this story should be made into a film by the younger generation in Japan,’” Ishikawa said.
U-Next's Ishiguro Hiroyuki will lead the film's production team. His previous work includes Hosoda Mamoru's animated film “Belle”, which premiered at Cannes.
Bunpoku's credits include the Cannes Best Screenplay winner Monster and the Netflix series Makanai: Cooking for Maiko's House, both directed by Koreeda.
