Haru

Haru, written and directed by Yoshimitsu Morita, follows two people who meet on an internet film forum and build a connection through email. Roughly 85 percent of the film consists of email exchanges shown as on screen text, giving it a letter like, epistolary structure years before smartphones existed. Morita won Best Screenplay at the 18th Yokohama Film Festival for it, and the film has since been described as anticipating You've Got Mail's boy meets girl online premise. Who it's for: anyone curious about an early, formally experimental take on online intimacy from a moment when the internet itself was still new. Who it's not for: viewers wanting a visually dynamic, dialogue driven drama, since the film leans heavily on written text appearing on screen.