Jouhatsu

A bipolar hip-hop artist is trapped by his own rationality in a hallucinated reality where he cannot tell himself apart. His attempt to express himself through rap is torn by a part of himself anchored to nihilism. But the light of his enthusiasm does not go out: the struggle is expressed through the protagonist's art, divided into sixteen reasons to live. The man reminds himself of his identity and stands out, in his inner theater, through scratching. Here the two parts find each other again. The conflict becomes tangible through rap and beatbox, performed by the respective psychological fragments within the artist's rediscovered identity. But fulfillment is a mere utopia. It is the conflict itself that generates creation: the endless circle of the main character's life.

In a near future, humanity has blotted out the sun with an artificial cloud in an attempt to stop climate collapse, and the world has lost its color. A photographer wanders this gray, lifeless landscape, obsessively searching for one last sign of life. When he meets a mysterious girl, he may finally have the chance to take the photograph he has been chasing all his life.

Rule one: the game begins at 3 p.m. sharp. Rule two: there is always one chair too few. Rule three: the winner gets the crown and the cake. Nobody remembers who wrote the rules. Everybody follows them. Musical Chairs explores the fragile space between aspiration and submission, where the desire to be someone can outweigh the freedom of being no one.