The Sower of Stars
2022 · 25m · Spain
Directed by Lois Patiño
Genres: experimental, fantasy, surrealism
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, surreal
A dream-like nocturnal journey through Tokyo — the limbo space between life and death, where the borders between the imaginary and the real blur.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Patiño's nocturnal Tokyo feels like it's *trying* to be dreamlike—all blur and melancholy—but the surrealism never quite breaks the fourth wall or makes you genuinely uncomfortable; it's experimental-lite, the kind of film that gets celebrated for *being* experimental rather than actually subverting anything.
Patiño stakes himself firmly in the lineage of midnight-city cinema and oneiric portraiture, and the formal commitment to holding liminal space—between life, death, real and imagined—shows a curator's hand; this is the kind of precisely-observed nocturne that rewards multiple viewings and argues itself into your memory.
The decision to let the city itself become the protagonist, treated with the same narrative weight as any character, is what elevates this—it's not just beautiful cinematography but a structural choice that lets 25 minutes breathe like a feature.