Name: AnyMart
Director: Yusuke Iwasaki
Released: 2026
Duration: 88 min

Winner of the FIPRESCI Prize at the Berlinale, this deadpan satire of late capitalism sees a convenience store become a stage for darkly funny horror.

Sakai – played by Japanese star Shota Sometani (Himizu, MIFF 2012) – is an assistant manager at the Tokyo convenience store managed by his father (Masahiko Nishimura), both men deadened by the rigid procedures and relentless monotony of retail. The arrival of a sparky new employee, Ogawa (Erika Karata, Asako 1 + 2, MIFF 2018), who still has dreams beyond just restocking shelves, stirs something in Sakai – but such anomalies as Ogawa threaten to upend the store’s delicate ecosystem, with surreal, blood-drenched results.

Writer/director Yusuke Iwasaki’s story is one informed by personal experience, having been dismayed by the changes he perceived in his own father during his tenure as a convenience store owner. In this auspicious feature debut, Iwasaki – assisted by an impressive cast – mounts a strident critique of conformity in his home country and the systems that enforce it, infusing the abundant aisles of AnyMart with a creeping, comic dread before the wild escalation of the film’s riotous and unpredictable final act.

“Yusuke Iwasaki’s thoughtful horror-comedy [captures] the absurdity of a non-place, and its wider significance, with wit and humanity. The kills are deeply entertaining; the implications are horrifying.” – Journey Into Cinema