Murayama Kaita, a Japanese painter, novelist and poet died in 1919 at the age of 22, leaving behind an impressive and time-defying body of work. In his most recent film, Sato Hisayasu offers a surreal, time-crossing, meta-layered essay on the artist, his originality and his legacy.　　Dear Kaita Ablaze brings together a young woman Azami obsessed with Murayama's painting, a young man Saku, who can hear unusual frequencies and claims to be Murayama or his spiritual imprint and a quartet of young performers with psychic abilities. They bond over Murayama’s work which they recreate in performative dance while driving to a mysterious cave called Agartha.　　Sato Hisayasu (The Eye's Dream, Muscle, The Bedroom), renowned for his pinku and exploration of madness and lust, returns to IFFR. Dear Kaita Ablaze is hyper-dense, obsessive and driven, effortlessly mashing surrealism with sci-fi and mysticism, layering seemingly unrelated events and encounters to bring them together in a monumental climax.　　– kijA

“生き別れた眼球”を捜している麻耶（万里紗）は、カメラを手に魔都TOKYOを当てもなく歩いていた。そんな麻耶のドキュメンタリー映画を作ろうと彼女の姿を記録する脳神経外科医の佐多（中野剛）と、麻耶の眼球を狙う黒ずくめの眼球コレクター（PANTA）だったが……。