A movie set in a love hotel, but without a single sex scene? A 59-year-old woman as the heroine? It’s hard to imagine that particular pitch loosening purse strings at major Japanese media companies. A fatally ill teenager? That’s more like it.
Director Izuru Kumasaka has incorporated these and other decidedly uncommercial elements into debut feature “Park and Love Hotel” (titled “Asyl” — short for “Asylum” — internationally), which won the Best First Feature Award at this year’s Berlin Film Festival. So small miracles do happen, though Kumasaka had an angel in the form of the Pia Film Festival, which gave him a scholarship that included backing for “Park and Love Hotel” for winning three awards in its 2005 edition with his short film “Tea and Milk (Kocha to Milk).”
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