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Taxi journeys through Kamaishi confront grief after Japan’s 2011 tsunami
Katharine Round’s documentary follows taxi drivers and passengers through the coastal Japanese city of Kamaishi, where conversations return to the grief and absence left by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Stories of phantom passengers and other apparitions give the film a supernatural dimension, while its quiet night-time journeys explore how people live with loss.
The film also places those memories in a town where older residents lament the lack of young people, making Kamaishi feel like a place shaped by both disaster and decline. Journalist Shiori Itō provides a thread between the interviews, which include drivers’ personal accounts of past mistakes and regrets. *Ghost Town* opens in UK and Irish cinemas on 6 November.
In short
- Taxi journeys in Kamaishi revisit the 2011 disaster.
- Drivers and passengers recount stories of ghosts and loss.
- The documentary opens in UK and Irish cinemas on 6 November.
Explained simply
Kamaishi is a coastal city in north-eastern Japan, in Iwate prefecture. On 11 March 2011, a powerful offshore earthquake triggered a tsunami that struck the region, destroying homes and changing life across many communities.
The disaster left many people grieving relatives and neighbours, while others moved away in the years that followed. Kamaishi, like some smaller towns, has also faced an ageing population and fewer young residents.
Katharine Round’s documentary Ghost Town centres on taxi drivers and passengers whose conversations touch on these changes and on personal memories. Journalist Shiori Itō links the interviews; stories of apparitions reflect beliefs and experiences associated with grief after the disaster.
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Originally published by The Guardian as “Ghost Town review – the phantoms and lost souls haunting a Japanese city after the 2011 earthquake”.