Sho Miyake answers life’s greatest questions

EntertainmentCloseEntertainmentPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All EntertainmentReportCloseReportPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All ReportFilmCloseFilmPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All FilmSho Miyake answers life’s greatest questionsThe Japanese director of Small, Slow But Steady and Two Seasons, Two Strangers talks to The Verge about confronting existential themes through quiet character portraits.by Robyn KannerCloseRobyn KannerFreelancerPosts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All by Robyn KannerApr 25, 2026, 12:00 PM UTCLinkShareGift Several FuturesEntertainmentCloseEntertainmentPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All EntertainmentReportCloseReportPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All ReportFilmCloseFilmPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All FilmSho Miyake answers life’s greatest questionsThe Japanese director of Small, Slow But Steady and Two Seasons, Two Strangers talks to The Verge about confronting existential themes through quiet character portraits.by Robyn KannerCloseRobyn KannerFreelancerPosts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All by Robyn KannerApr 25, 2026, 12:00 PM UTCLinkShareGiftAcclaimed Japanese director Sho Miyake has arrived in the States. He’s brought with him two feature films: Small, Slow But Steady and Two Seasons, Two Strangers, a pair of naturalistic portraits that deal with the uneasy human desire to relate to other people. Seclusion and unease are bedrocks to Miyake’s growing filmography. “I like these characters that have a sense of discomfort that slowly starts to distance them from society,” he tells The Verge.I first saw Small, Slow But Steady at New Directors/New Films (lowkey one of the better film festivals New York has to offer). It’s an affectionate story of a deaf boxer, Keiko (Yukino Kishii), who is on the heels of winning her first bout. Miyake delicately balances the tension of Keiko’s ambition with the tepid malaise she feels from her success, exacerbated when her longtime trainer’s health deteriorates and her routine is upended.Sho Miyake’s latest feature, Two Seasons, Two Strangers, has its own friction to resolve. The film starts and ends with a screenwriter, Li (Shim Eun-kyung), writing at a desk. But in the middle is Miyake weaving in separate stories of human connection and isolation based on renowned cartoonist Yoshiharu Tsuge’s A View of the Seaside and Mr. Ben and His Igloo — a film within a film, or a manga within a manga. Its structural innovations is earning Miyake praise; he recently took home the Golden Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival.The Verge sat down with Sho Miyake ahead of Two Seasons, Two Strangers US theatrical debut. (Small, Slow But Steady is available on demand now.) Speaking through a translator, Miyake answered the big existential questions — like why we, as humans, tell stories — and what he thinks about AI.Director Sho Miyake Robyn KannerThis interview has been edited for clarity.You did an interview recently in Nowness Asia where…

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