Film archive, 2026

Hinotama: Ball of Fire

火の玉

Director YAZA Takenoshin

2Festival entries

★Avg. rating

As his parents’ marriage fractures and eventually collapses into divorce, high schooler Takeshi becomes increasingly obsessed with hunting for a mysterious ‘ball of fire’ rumored by a childhood friend. Using this quest to escape the quiet turmoil at home, Takeshi leaves his younger brother to shoulder the family’s emotional weight without realizing it. At just 24 years old, director Yaza Takenoshin demonstrates astonishing maturity and rigorous visual control. He deftly conveys the suffocating tension at home in a manner echoing Kurosawa Kiyoshi’s Tokyo Sonata. Within neat, tightly ordered domestic spaces, Yaza exposes the inevitable fractures of human connection, where the facade of calm gives way to suppressed emotion. The search for the ball of fire offers less warmth than a fleeting spark against cool-toned isolation, yet the film’s spatial mastery and brilliantly executed finale signal a promising new talent to watch for the future.

Stills5

Film details

Director: YAZA Takenoshin
Country/Region: Japan
Year: 2026
Length: 112min
Original language: Japanese
Elsewhere: Letterboxd IMDb TMDB Douban

Director

YAZA Takenoshin

At 16, Yaza won the Grand Prize at a national film competition with The Story of the Largest Kettle in Japan (2019), a film about nuclear energy. He studied philosophy and film at Harvard as a Yanai Tadashi Foundation Scholar, graduating in 2026.

From Tokyo International Film Festival 2026, No. 39

Credits

Director: YAZA Takenoshin
Producer: Tomohisa ISHII
Cast: Riku ONISHI, Koe ODANI, Himena IREI, Mari KUSU, Tomomitsu ADACHI
Screenplay: YAZA Takenoshin
Cinematography: Yoshio KITAGAWA
Production design: Shusaku TSUKAMOTO
Editing: YAZA Takenoshin
Music: Gabriel BRADY
Sound: Masato KOMAKI
Lighting Director: Lisa HIRAYA
Production company: Lamp. K.K.

Festival appearances2

Choose a festival entry to see its screenings, articles and audience reviews.

Hinotama: Ball of FireTokyo International Film Festival 2026, No. 39Nippon Cinema Now

Hinotama: Ball of FireBusan International Film Festival 2026, No. 31Vision: Asia

Festival history2

东京国际电影节, 2026Nippon Cinema Now, Competitive section 釜山国际电影节, 2026Vision: Asia, Official selection

Film posters

Poster language