A 22-year-old prodigy when he won the New Directors Award at San Sebastian in 2018 for his student film “Jesus,” Okuyama Hiroshi took something of a roundabout route to his second feature, “ My Sunshine ,” which screened in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard lineup. Okuyama’s coming-of-age drama about two tween ice skaters — a boy and girl who study under the same coach in a northern provincial town — originated from his own seven years in the sport. “I learned skating from the age of 5 to 12 — I wanted to become a professional,” says Okuyama.
But he also struggled to construct a story from his childhood skating memories until he came across a 2014 hit by the singer-songwriter duo Humbert Humbert. Called “Boku no Ohisama” (“My Sunshine”), it not only supplied the title of his film, but its lyrics about “getting stuck when I try say something important” also gave him the idea for his protagonist, Takuya (Koshiyama Keitatsu). A dreamy kid who speaks with a stutter, Takuya becomes entranced with Sakura (Nakanishi Kiara), a quietly confident girl who glides and leaps around the town’s ice rink like a vision of beauty and grace.
Bad at hockey and baseball — two must-do sports for local boys — Takuya tries to clumsily figure skate on his own. Sakura’s coach, the firm-but-understanding Arakawa (Ikematsu Sosuke), is touched by Takuya’s ambition and desire and starts to train him in his spare time. “I thought that if I could use (“Boku no Ohisama.