Based on the true story of four children left to survive secretly on their own in a small Tokyo apartment when their mother abandons them, Nobody Knows was shot in improvisational, documentary style, chronologically over a year, with non-professional actors who grew up before the camera as their characters do. The film was nominated for the Palme D'Or, at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival.
After the screening, Global Cinema Sub-Committee Co-Chair Victoria Hochberg was joined by Akira Mizuta Lippit, Professor of Critical Studies and Professor of Comparative Literature and East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Southern California, to discuss the filmmaker and provide a cultural context for the film's reception in its native Japan.
