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Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Departures (film)

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Departures (film)

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This is the archived discussion of the TFAR nomination for the article below. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests). Please do not modify this page.

The result was: scheduled for Wikipedia:Today's featured article/August 15, 2015 by  — Chris Woodrich (talk) 23:45, 27 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Set for Departures

Departures is a Japanese drama film directed by Yōjirō Takita and starring Masahiro Motoki, Ryōko Hirosue, and Tsutomu Yamazaki. Loosely based on Shinmon Aoki's memoir Coffinman, the film follows a young man who becomes a nōkanshi—a traditional Japanese ritual mortician—and overcomes the prejudices of those around him. The story was conceived after Motoki, affected by a funeral ceremony he had seen along the Ganges, read Coffinman and felt that the story would adapt well to film. Departures took a decade to complete, and distributors only released it after the film won the grand prize at the Montreal World Film Festival in August 2008. Departures became the year's highest-grossing domestic film and won numerous awards, including the first Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film for Japan. It was praised for its humour and the beauty of the encoffining ceremony (set pictured), but critics took issue with the film's predictability and overt sentimentality. The film's success spurred the development of tourist attractions at its shooting sites, increased interest in encoffining ceremonies, and the adaptation of the story for various media. (Full article...)