'Obon no Ototo' is one director's attempt to portray his real life through a fictional self

'Life imitates art far more than art imitates life," quipped Oscar Wilde, but in the film world mining one's own life for the sake of art — or rather, a script — is an ancient and hallowed practice. The resulting film, however, may have only a tenuous relationship with the filmmaker's actual biography.

Director Akira Osaki's bittersweet black-and-white comedy "Obon no Ototo" ("Obon Brothers") certainly sounds a lot like his own. The film is about a failing director's struggles to make a new movie while dealing with his cranky older brother and his estranged wife's demand for a divorce.

The film's real and fictional director both hail from Gunma Prefecture, have one previous film to their credit — Osaki's is the 2006 drama "Catchball-ya" ("The Catch Man") — and are old friends with the scriptwriter for their new project (in Osaki's case, Shin Adachi).