Born in Tokyo in 1980, Koji Fukada released his first film in 2004, but his breakthrough was 2010's "Kantai (Hospitalité)," a witty black comedy about a mysterious stranger who talks his way into a job at a small Tokyo printing shop and is soon insinuating himself into the lives of the shop's proprietor and his family. Premiering in the Tokyo International Film Festival's Japanese Eyes section, "Hospitalité" won the best film prize and was widely screened abroad, while its French title and story called up comparisons with the 1932 Jean Renoir comedy classic "Boudu Saved from Drowning."

For his new film "Hotori no Sakuko (Au Revoir l'Eté)," Fukada drew on French cinema for inspiration yet again, specifically the oeuvre of Eric Rohmer. And once again his film made its debut at the Tokyo festival, this time in the main competition of the 26th edition. In an interview with The Japan Times in the rooftop room of a recording studio (a first for this reporter), Fukada admits that Rohmer "is a director I respect; I was also conscious of (his films) when I was making 'Kantai' and 'Tokyo Ningen Kigeki (Human Comedy in Tokyo)' (2009). But the subject matter of my new film — a young woman spends her summer vacation in a small seaside town — may make it especially easy to understand the Rohmer influence."

Similar to Rohmer, Fukada creates the surface appearance of casualness and discursiveness, but he also carefully weighs the stylistics of each shot. "I've decided that you can really only shoot the surface of people, so I'm a director who's really picky about style, about getting the surface right," he says.