‘Opus,’ the Farewell of Japanese Composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, Will Premiere at Venice Film Festival 

In this photo provided by 2022 Kab Inc., Japanese musician Ryuichi Sakamoto performs piano in a new film “Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus,” directed by Neo Sora, which is making its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival next month. (2022 Kab Inc. via AP)
In this photo provided by 2022 Kab Inc., Japanese musician Ryuichi Sakamoto performs piano in a new film “Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus,” directed by Neo Sora, which is making its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival next month. (2022 Kab Inc. via AP)
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‘Opus,’ the Farewell of Japanese Composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, Will Premiere at Venice Film Festival 

In this photo provided by 2022 Kab Inc., Japanese musician Ryuichi Sakamoto performs piano in a new film “Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus,” directed by Neo Sora, which is making its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival next month. (2022 Kab Inc. via AP)
In this photo provided by 2022 Kab Inc., Japanese musician Ryuichi Sakamoto performs piano in a new film “Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus,” directed by Neo Sora, which is making its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival next month. (2022 Kab Inc. via AP)

Sitting alone before a grand piano in a stark studio, Ryuichi Sakamoto takes the listener on a journey of his life, playing 20 of his compositions.

Shot entirely in black and white, on three 4K cameras, the film “Opus,” directed by Neo Sora, is the Japanese composer’s farewell, poetic yet bold, and deeply heartfelt.

Its world premiere is set for the Venice International Film Festival next month. The filming took place over several days, just a half year before his death on March 28 at 71.

Sakamoto had been battling cancer since 2014, and could no longer do concert performances, and so he turned to film.

He plays pieces he had never performed on solo piano. He delivers a striking, new slow-tempo arrangement of “Tong Poo,” a composition from his early days with techno-pop Yellow Magic Orchestra that catapulted him to stardom in the late 1970s when Asian musicians still tended to be marginal in the West.

“I felt utterly hollow afterward, and my condition worsened for about a month,” Sakamoto says in a statement.

He speaks only a few lines in the film.

“I need a break. This is tough. I’m pushing myself,” he says barely audibly in Japanese, about midway through the film.

He also says, “let’s go again,” indicating he wants to play a sequence again.

For the rest of the nearly two-hour film, he lets his piano do the talking.

The notes resonate from his fingers, lovingly shot in closeups, sometimes slowly, one pensive note at a time. Other times, they come jamming in those majestically Asian-evocative chords that have defined his sound.

After each piece, he lifts his hands up from the keys and holds them there in the air.

“Opus” is a testament to Sakamoto’s legendary filmography. He composed for some of the world’s greatest auteurs, including Bernardo Bertolucci, Brian DePalma, Takashi Miike, Alejandro G. Inarritu, Peter Kominsky and Nagisa Oshima.

The film is also evidence he remained active until the very end. He performs an excerpt from his meditative final album “12,” released earlier this year.

By the time Sakamoto starts playing the melody from Bertolucci’s 1987 “The Last Emperor,” the emotions are almost overwhelming. The soundtrack, which also included musician David Byrne, won both an Oscar and a Grammy.

Sora, the director, who was raised in New York and Tokyo, says he and the crew were determined to capture the sense of time and timelessness, so crucial in Sakamoto’s art, in what everyone knew might be his final performance.

All the sounds that usually get taken out in post-production, rustling clothing, clicking nails or Sakamoto’s breathing, were purposely kept, not minimized in the mix.

“Part of the reason why we decided to shoot in black and white was because we thought that also highlighted the physicality of his body, with the black and white keys of the piano,” said Sora, named one of the 25 New Faces of Independent Film by Filmmaker Magazine in 2020.

Sakamoto first came up with a set list, and the filmmakers worked out with him in advance a detailed plan for a visual narrative and concept.

Designed as a film from the get-go, not just a documentary of a performance, the work features the lighting design, artful long takes and Zoom-lens closeups concocted by Bill Kirstein, the director of photography.

“We were able to get shots of hands and keys that we were never able to get before,” said Kirstein, comparing the film’s imagery to a drawing.

Hundreds of pounds of weights were laid on the floor so the camera dolly could move silently without creaking.

A memorable moment comes toward the end when Sakamoto plays “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence,” from the 1983 Oshima film bearing the same title and starring David Bowie and Golden Lion-winner Takeshi Kitano.

Sakamoto also acted in the film, portraying a World War II Japanese soldier who commands a prisoner-of-war camp. He was young, barely in his 30s. Yet in so many ways he remained unchanged as that frail silver-haired bespectacled man, crouched over his piano.

As the film moves to the final tune, Sakamoto has disappeared, gone to that other world that some call heaven. The piano, under a spotlight, is playing on its own, a reminder his music is eternal, and still here.



‘Conclave’ Leads the Pack at Britain’s BAFTA Film Awards

US actor Demi Moore attends the BAFTA Film Awards 2025 nominees party, at the National Gallery in London, Britain, 15 February 2025. (EPA)
US actor Demi Moore attends the BAFTA Film Awards 2025 nominees party, at the National Gallery in London, Britain, 15 February 2025. (EPA)
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‘Conclave’ Leads the Pack at Britain’s BAFTA Film Awards

US actor Demi Moore attends the BAFTA Film Awards 2025 nominees party, at the National Gallery in London, Britain, 15 February 2025. (EPA)
US actor Demi Moore attends the BAFTA Film Awards 2025 nominees party, at the National Gallery in London, Britain, 15 February 2025. (EPA)

Papal thriller “Conclave” leads the race for the 78th British Academy Film Awards on Sunday, with genre-bending musical “Emilia Pérez” facing a test of whether a multi-pronged backlash has made the former prize favorite an awards-season pariah.

A plethora of movie stars — including Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Hugh Grant, Kate Winslet, Timothée Chalamet and Saoirse Ronan — are due on the red carpet at London’s Roya Festival Hall. The awards, known as BAFTAs, will be watched for clues about who will triumph at Hollywood’s Academy Awards next month.

“Conclave” is nominated in 12 categories, including best picture, best director for Edward Berger and best actor for Ralph Fiennes, playing a cardinal corralling conniving clergy as they elect a new pope.

Mexico-set melodrama “Emilia Pérez” has 11 nominations, including best picture and best director for Jacques Audiard.

Best-actress nominee Karla Sofía Gascón, who stars as the film’s titular ex-cartel boss, is not expected to attend the ceremony. Gascón has withdrawn from promoting the film, which has 13 Oscar nominations, amid controversy over her social media posts disparaging Muslims, George Floyd and diversity at the Oscars.

Audiard has called the remarks “absolutely hateful.” The musical, shot in France with a largely non-Mexican cast, has also faced criticism from Mexicans for what some see as its cliched and exploitative depiction of the country.

From the BAFTAs to the Oscars

The British prizes — officially called the EE BAFTA Film Awards — may give hints of who will win at the Oscars on March 3, in an unusually hard-to-call awards season.

The best-film contenders are “Conclave,” “Emilia Pérez,” Brady Corbet’s 215-minute architecture epic “The Brutalist,” Sean Baker’s Brighton Beach tragicomedy “Anora” and the James Mangold-directed Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown.”

“The Brutalist” has nine nominations, while “Anora,” the sci-fi epic “Dune: Part Two” and musical “Wicked” have seven each.

“A Complete Unknown” received six nominations, as did the Irish-language hip-hop drama “Kneecap,” whose nominations include best film not in the English language.

Nominees in the category of outstanding British film include Andrea Arnold’s “Bird,” Steve McQueen’s “Blitz,” Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator II” and “Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl,” which is also up for best animated feature.

The leading actor favorite is “The Brutalist” star Adrien Brody, who faces stiff competition from Fiennes and Chalamet, who plays the young Dylan in “A Complete Unknown.”

The other male actors nominated are Hugh Grant for his creepy role in the horror film “Heretic,” Colman Domingo in real-life prison drama “Sing Sing ” and Sebastian Stan for his portrayal of a young Donald Trump in “The Apprentice.”

Whoever takes the best actress award will be a first-time BAFTA winner.

Nominees are Gascón, Demi Moore for body-horror film “The Substance,” Mikey Madison for “Anora,” Ronan for “The Outrun,” Cynthia Erivo for “Wicked” and Marianne Jean-Baptiste for Mike Leigh drama “Hard Truths.” Erivo or Jean-Baptiste would be the first non-white performer to win the leading actress BAFTA.

What's new

Britain’s film academy introduced changes to increase the awards’ diversity in 2020, when no women were nominated as best director for the seventh year running and all 20 nominees in the lead and supporting performer categories were white

The voting process was changed to add a longlist round in the selection before the final nominees are voted on by the academy’s 8,000-strong membership of industry professionals.

Contenders for the Rising Star award, the only prize decided by public vote, are performers Mikey Madison, Marisa Abela, Jharrel Jerome, David Jonsson and Nabhaan Rizwan.

Last month’s devastating Los Angeles wildfires may cast a pall over the ceremony, hosted by former “Doctor Who” star David Tennant. Jamie Lee Curtis, a supporting actress nominee for “The Last Showgirl,” will be absent because the fires delayed filming on her current work. Co-star Pamela Anderson will accept the prize for Curtis if she wins.

The event will also be without a dash of royal glamour this year. Neither Prince William, who is honorary president of the British film academy, nor his wife Kate are attending.

It will include a performance by grown-up boyband Take That, whose 2008 hit “Greatest Day” features on the “Anora” soundtrack. Jeff Goldblum will play piano during the ceremony’s tribute to people who have died in the past year.