Wool 100%

This year our expanded Planet Japan celebration includes several unreleased films from previous editions of LIFF. Like Angel’s Egg, Summer Time Machine Blues, and Symbol, Wool 100% is a unique cult film that could only have come out of Japan. Filmmaker Mai Tominaga had a background in animation before making her feature debut with Wool 100%, a charming yarn about yearning featuring two old sisters whose home has been taken over by their collected junk. One day they discover a mysterious young woman who knits obsessively with red wool they found.

‘“Once upon a time there were two sisters, Ume-san and Kame-san…” It’s with this classic storybook beginning that filmmaker Mai Tominaga starts her feature film debut Wool 100%, and like any good fairy tale it uses child-like whimsy and enchantment to address the dark secrets and longings in the hearts of adults… Tominaga uses the imagery of junk, a doll house, and of course the blood red yarn to explore issues of femininity, reproduction, loneliness and abandonment if not in a direct way then an obtuse kind of dream logic.’ (From a review by Chris MaGee in J-Film Pow-Wow) ‘I made a film which is a little bit weird. The power of imagination is wonderful and given to only humans. I want to think that the imagination in your head exists and made this film. So I want you to watch it using the power of imagination.’

Mai Tominaga, Director