Someone's Gaze

A seven-minute short by Makoto Shinkai. It was commissioned for a property group's housing exhibition and first shown at the Tokyo International Forum in February 2013, then played in cinemas ahead of The Garden of Words that May. A cat narrates. When Aya was small and alone in the house because her mother worked abroad, her father brought her a cat named Mii. Aya grew up, took a job, moved out, and the cat stayed with the father. The film sets her present-day flat beside the house where the father is left with the animal. Shinkai's familiar theme here is not distance or time but simply moving out. The same feeling is built without an event. Who it is for: viewers curious about Shinkai's short work who do not object to being moved in seven minutes. Who it is not for: anyone who cannot forget it is promotional. It was made for a housing exhibition, and the idea of home is deliberately placed at the centre of the text.