Opposites come together in the Japanese classical pianist and performance artist Eriko Makimura, who is facing and liberating herself from her past.

Japanese Eriko Makimura is very talented on the piano. Her art and performances unite the grotesque, the polished and the delicate. But her perfectionism did not come for free, and Eriko has had to pay a high price. After growing up in a strict and disciplined childhood filled with humiliation and often wishing to be elsewhere, Eriko is finally on the path to find and accept herself – and to reunite herself with her passion for the piano.

Production notes

[F]inally free of the many restrictions imposed on her by the career of a classical pianist, Makimura now tests the limits of her instrument’s keys and hammers – be it by filling it up with light, plastic balls for one performance or by sharing intimate life stories with the audience, probably still more accustomed to demure performers barely able to look up from their Chopin.

Splidsboel oscillates between the public and the personal here, although his spitfire of a protagonist appears intent on consistently breaking down such frivolous divisions, moving from her growingly out-there gigs in different countries, including Poland, to lengthy discussions with people who actually understand her plight: a former ballet dancer who chose family over her all-consuming profession or a close friend, able to listen even when playing dress-up like it’s the Mad Hatter’s tea party all over again.

Marta Balaga, Cineuropa

The director Jannik Splidsboel is present in the screening on Wed, Feb 1.