Hope 2021

Directed by Daisuke Shimote

“HOPE” is a film about the encounters between three groups of men and women in a public bath in a corner of Tokyo. The public bath in Japan is a special place. It is a public bathing place for cleanliness, but also a place where the local population can meet and socialise. In addition, land prices in Tokyo are so high that poor people do not have baths in their homes. Public bathhouses also act as a kind of social security system, as welfare families are given tickets for bathing in the public baths, allowing them to soak in a large bathtub at a low price. Public baths attract a truly diverse range of people. Local residents of all ages, men and women, sento lovers, foreign workers, LGBT...... attributes are difficult to see due to the nature of bathing naked, so a community of equals of the socially vulnerable is formed in the baths.