Akihiro Suzuki’s Looking for an Angel (1999)
Nov 19, 2025, 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM (with virtual conversation with director)
Bok Auditorium, 800 Mifflin St, Philadelphia, PA 19148, USA
Curator and filmmaker Akihiro Suzuki will hold a virtual conversation after the screening of his film, Looking for an Angel (1999). Co-presented with Lightbox Film Center.
Mostly seen on the gay pink circuit and recently restored by its director to its rightful place in the Japanese arthouse canon, Akihiro Suzuki's debut takes the death of a young gay porn performer named Takachi as its starting point. Looking for an Angel follows Shinpei and Reiko as they process their friend’s disappearance, their memories coalescing into a bold exploration of grief set against the backdrop of a nostalgic, blue-hued city shot in a variety of filmic formats. As the viewer begins to piece together Takachi’s story, laden with desire for another boy named Sorao, between the cities of Tokyo and Kochi (“where the boys look like angels”), a powerful free-associative beauty emerges from a unique work described by Suzuki himself as “neither straight, gay, queer, bisexual, asexual or pornographic, but [rather] anti-heterosexist” — a film completely free of dogma and convention. (Akihiro Suzuki, Japan, 1999, 61 min.) In Japanese with English subtitles.
akihiro suzuki
Born in 1961, Akihiro Suzuki is a producer and filmmaker who predominantly works in the field of underground culture-related projects, and has directed, distributed, produced, and organized film festivals and screenings. He is also the director of S.I.G. Inc., and the underground online cinematheque, Art Saloon. Representative directorial works include Looking for an Angel (1999), Lunar Child (2009) and Artaud Double (2013), a film of the performance by Masahiko Akuta and Ko Murobushi. Production projects include I Like You, I Like You Very Much (directed by Hiroyuki Oki) and Syabondama Elegy (directed by Ian Kerkhof). Film festival projects include the Tokyo Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, Underground Archives, among others. Since 2021, they have organized the UNDERGROUND CINEMA FESTIVAL, dedicated to discovering, digitizing, archiving, and screening little-known independent, personal, and experimental films. The next edition is scheduled to take place across Japan starting in March 2026.