A Pale View of Hills, the film adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's first novel that is currently in production, will be distributed by GAGA Corporation and produced by Japan's Bunbuku and the U.K.'s Number 9 Films, Deadline reported. Set to be released in Japan in summer 2025, the project stars Suzu Hirose (Our Little Sister, The Third Murder). It is exec-produced by Ishiguro and directed by Kei Ishikawa (Gukoroku: Traces of Sin, A Man). U-Next's Hiroyuki Ishiguro will lead the producing team.
"I'm a great admirer of Ishikawa-san's previous movie, A Man, and I've been very excited from the first day he expressed his wish to adapt my novel, A Pale View of Hills," Kazuo Ishiguro said. "He has a masterly command over the language of cinema and draws superbly nuanced performances from his actors. His fine screenplay, which I've read with fascination, is mysterious and moving."
Ishikawa added: "I still cannot believe that we are making a film based on this special story by our own hands. What gave me the courage to face this great novel was the words of the author Kazuo-san, who said, 'I always believed that this story should be made into a film by the younger generation in Japan.' "
Hiroyuki Ishiguro commented: "Ever since I discovered this novel in London, it has been my dream to adapt it into a feature film as a Japanese-British co-production. During the development of this project, we experienced the pandemic, and now conflicts persist in different places of the world. As we face rapid changes in this world where lifestyles and values are constantly shifting, and the future remains uncertain, I find great significance in bringing this deeply personal story to follow one woman's memory, set in 1950s Japan and 1980s England--two eras that also underwent paradigm shifts--to a global audience as a narrative with universal themes related to the present."