Known for its polarizing social spheres, overtly conservative traditions and its dark underbelly, Tokyo has a longstanding tradition of cultural extremes. 

River, premiering today, distills the city’s history of under-the-radar sexual deviancy: from ancestral Edo’s ukiyo (“floating world”), the pleasure-seeking lifestyle synonymous with the red-light district where citizens pushed the boundaries of societal norms, to the ultra-modern underworld portrayed in Gaspar Noé’s Enter the Void and immortalized by novelist Ryū Murakami. 

Shot by Vancouver-based director Kheaven Lewandowski, the largely improvised narrative tells the story of an ageing male ‘host’ in bustling contemporary Tokyo, originally conceived as an award-winning music video for orchestral pop act The Belle Game’s track of the same name.