A child humanoid leads Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s latest film

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A child humanoid leads Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s latest film

2026-07-25 00:50 Last Updated At：01:01

TOKYO (AP) — In acclaimed Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda's latest film, a grieving couple turns to technology to recreate what they have lost.

“Sheep in the Box,” opening in U.S. theaters Friday, centers on a married couple whose son has died. To cope with their grief, they commission a humanoid made in his exact likeness.

The title refers to “The Little Prince,” Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s children’s book, in which a sheep is imagined as being hidden inside a box. For Kore-eda, the reference suggests that some of the most valuable things in life may be intangible, sustained by connections that cannot be seen.

The film, a family drama set in the not-too-distant future, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival this year.

“It explores how a couple tries to rework their relationship with their child, and so it’s not that different from the stories I’ve explored in my past works,” Kore-eda told The Associated Press.

Born in Tokyo in 1962, Kore-eda started directing documentaries after graduating from Waseda University. He generally writes, directs and edits his films, an enormous undertaking in filmmaking, but it gives him near-total control.

His 2013 feature “Like Father, Like Son,” a heartbreaking exploration of fatherhood centering on babies who get switched at birth, won the Jury Prize at Cannes.

His 2018 “Shoplifters,” which won the Palme d’Or and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, was about a poverty-stricken family that survives partly by shoplifting.

In 2019, he directed French actors Catherine Deneuve and Juliette Binoche in “The Truth.” In the 2022 film “Broker,” he directed Korean actors, including Song Kang-ho, who won Best Actor at Cannes.

Despite the demands of his productions, Kore-eda is known for trying to ensure that everyone enjoys working on his sets. He has also been a longtime and vocal opponent of harassment in the industry.

That approach stands out in an industry known for punishing hours and low pay, particularly in Japan. Anyone found harassing another person while working on one of Kore-eda’s films is immediately removed from the production.

Adding to the challenge of ensuring benevolent filmmaking is that his works often have children as leading characters.

In his 2004 “Nobody Knows,” children live without adult supervision, as they scrounge for food and live without running water or electricity.

That film propelled Yuya Yagira to stardom. Yagira, still active as an actor today, won Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival, at 14.

“Sheep in the Box” also features a striking performance by child actor Rimu Kuwaki, who took on the difficult role of playing a robot in his feature-film debut.

Kore-eda denied he saw children as a necessary element in his filmmaking. He merely likes the style of taking the view of a child to explore the adult world.

“It’s a heavy responsibility. We may be the first adults besides parents and teachers these children may come in contact with,” he said.

“We want them to go home thinking all the adults were hard-working and having fun.”

Kore-eda is surprisingly disarming for a filmmaker whose works address such serious themes. He laughs easily.

When this reporter said she wanted to ask the same question she asked Japanese director Akira Kurosawa many years ago — “What is filmmaking for you?” — he didn’t skip a beat asking what Kurosawa’s answer was.

“If you take movies away from me, I am left with nothing,” was Kurosawa’s answer.

Kore-eda jokingly pretended to give the same answer before offering his own.

“Movies are the only hobby I’ve ever had. That became my job. Thinking about that hobby 24 hours a day became my life and my job,” he said.

“I am so blessed.”

Yuri Kageyama is on Threads: https://www.threads.com/@yurikageyama

Tens of thousands of people flee raging wildfires in France and Spain, some escaping by boat

ARCACHON, France (AP) — Large forest fires burned out of control in southwestern France and central Spain on Friday, prompting authorities to evacuate an estimated 87,000 people from their homes. Some even fled by boat when flames swept through the touristic Cap Ferret peninsula on France's Atlantic coast.

Dozens of firefighters were injured, authorities said, but no deaths were reported in either country.

Some 125 square kilometers (48 square miles) have been consumed by the blaze that has raged since Wednesday near Cap Ferret. Located just 60 kilometers (37 miles) from Bordeaux, the peninsula normally offers stunning landscapes and sandy beaches as well as oyster-farming villages and upmarket resorts.

About 67,000 residents in France escaped a larger area as authorities ordered additional evacuations further south after a separate wildfire broke out. Both France and Spain have asked fellow European Union members for help.

“It’s quite impressive and even frightening," said Laurent Moretti, a resident in the town of Arès. “An evacuation on this scale has never happened before. All we really hope is that the firefighters can quickly get it under control.”

More than 20,000 people had already been evacuated from towns and vacation resorts on Thursday. The new evacuations were carried out by road, with boat shuttles provided for people who could not travel by their own means.

Local authorities in the Gironde department said 53 homes and a camp site have been ravaged by flames, adding that 42 firefighters were injured. Around 1,500 people who fled the peninsula arrived by sea in the city of Arcachon, some aboard small water taxis and others on larger boats.

Hundreds of French firefighters have been deployed and additional ground and aerial reinforcements were sent Friday to tackle the blaze. Meanwhile, another major wildfire destroyed 25 square kilometers of land further south down the coast. It remained uncontained and strong winds hampered the work of firefighters.

Authorities believe the cause of both fires was accidental. Some 44,000 people have been evacuated in Gironde, and 23,000 in the Landes.

French President Emmanuel Macron said France will receive EU reinforcements including two Croatian Canadair firefighting aircraft, two Portuguese Air Tractor aircraft, and two heavy-lift Black Hawk helicopters from the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said that Italy and Greece are each sending two Canadair water-dumping airplanes.

In Spain, the government declared a national emergency for wildfires for the first time as the blazes in Madrid and the nearby province of Ávila prompted the evacuation of some 20,000 people from towns.

The fires are being fanned by a heat wave with temperatures expected to top 39 degrees Celsius (102 Fahrenheit) in parts of Spain.

The two major fires west of Madrid merged into one single blaze that had quickly charred 30 square kilometers (11.5 square miles) by Friday afternoon. Regional President Isabel Díaz-Ayuso called it the worst in Madrid's history.

Francisco Martín, the central government representative for the region of Madrid, said that 40,000 people had been either evacuated or ordered to shelter at home in towns west of the capital. At least 19,000 people of that total are estimated to have been forced to leave their homes. Martín said more evacuations could be coming.

Meanwhile, a blaze in Ávila, less than two hours northwest of Madrid, had consumed 90 square kilometers (34 square miles), causing another 1,500 people to flee. Spain's Civil Guard arrested one man and is investigating another for allegedly having used heavy machinery in an area where it was prohibited for fire risk. Police believe a spark ignited the fire on Thursday.

“In my 60 years I have never seen something like this in my village, I have never seen fire of these dimensions,” Francisco Martínez, the mayor of Burgohondo, whose residents were preventively evacuated in Ávila, told Spain’s national broadcaster TVE.

Spanish television showed video taken by retreating residents of walls of flames topped by long plumes of smoke advancing through woods and scrublands. High winds and hilly terrain complicated efforts by firefighters, who combated the blazes with firetrucks and bulldozers.

“All around the town was smoke and fire, I was scared. Everything was fire and smoke, people were nervous,” 33-year-old Joaquin Espinosa told The Associated Press before he and his neighbors were evacuated from the village of Chapinería, located less than an hour's drive west of Madrid.

In one week, Spain has had the worst fires on record for both the regions of Castilla La Mancha and Madrid.

Firefighters were still trying to extinguish Spain’s second-largest ever fire in the Guadalajara province of Castilla La Mancha after it had destroyed some 320 square kilometers (120 square miles) over the last week. Thirteen people were also killed in a fire in southern Spain earlier this month, the deadliest fire in recent memory for Spain.

Spanish Minister for the Ecological Transition Sara Aagesen said that Spain has seen 1,140 square kilometers (440 square miles) already burned this year, more than five times the burned terrain it had through the first half of 2025. There were nine other serious fires in other parts of Spain active on Friday.

Sánchez called on Wednesday for a pact between political parties to fight climate change that he said is key to adapting to a more fire-prone climate. Spain has experienced record temperatures in recent summers and forest fires of increasing violence.

Wildfire analyst Raúl Quílez said that besides the impact of climate change, Spain’s rural areas have become more exposed to fires with the abandonment of farmlands that traditionally provided buffer zones around villages. Now, he said, trees and undergrowth often reach right to homes, putting them in harm’s way.

"That makes a perfect cocktail for this type of fires,” Quílez told the AP by phone from Valencia, where he works as an analyst for regional firefighters.

In Italy, as wildfires ravaged Sicily and other areas, civil protection officials said arsonists were behind some of the blazes and were using cats to help propagate the flames.

The head of the civil protection agency in Calabria, Domenico Costarella, said arsonists had attached rags soaked in flammable liquid to the tails of cats and then set them loose in fields to spread the fire.

Fueled by temperatures that have topped 40 C (104 F), low humidity and winds, the blazes have forced scattered evacuations and were blamed for the death of a firefighter responding to a fire in Caltanissetta.

Scientists warn that climate change is exacerbating the frequency and intensity of heat and dryness especially in southeastern Europe, making the region more vulnerable to wildfires.

Alicia León in Chapinería, Spain, and Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this story. Petrequin reported from Paris. Wilson reported from Barcelona, Spain.