The event will be held in Shimotsuma City! MIRRORLIAR FILMS Season 10" directed by Kou Shibasaki Announcing the launch of "Shimotsuma Academy," a film production x regional revitalization initiative

Kou Shibasaki

　Shimotsuma City (Shimotsuma, Ibaraki Prefecture) officially announces that it will host the short film production project MIRRORLIAR FILMS Season 10 in Shimotsuma City on March 1, 2026.

　At the same time, the project will create a cyclical learning system that will nurture the "human ability" required in the future society and pass it on to the next generation through the learning that can be cultivated through films and the experience of filmmaking, which cannot be experienced in everyday life.

　The goal is not to make the film production a mere one-time event, but to return the experience and learning gained through the film production to the local community and link it to education, human resource development, local industry, and daily life in a sustainable manner.

Background

22 years after "Shimotsuma Monogatari", Shimotsuma City faces the challenge of facing the film again

Sand Swamp and Mt.

　The movie "The Tale of Shimotsuma," released in 2004, spread the name of Shimotsuma City throughout Japan and showed many people the fact that "even in the countryside, stories are told and culture is born.

　While today's Shimotsuma City retains the scenery depicted in "The Tale of Shimotsuma," the city has undergone significant changes. While preserving the rural landscape at the foot of Mt. Tsukuba, the city is making great strides toward becoming a town where people can choose to live a lifestyle that suits them best, such as by taking advantage of its location within 60 km of Tokyo and increasing the number of people commuting to work and school.

　Furthermore, due to its vast flat land and easy access to the Tokyo metropolitan area, the city has succeeded in attracting blue-chip companies, and in order to steadily accept new residents, including transferees, in the future, the city is selling public land to the private sector and focusing on housing policy. We will actively promote the charms of Shimotsuma City, including its wonderful living environment blessed with agricultural and livestock products, using the "movie" as a catalyst.

　Twenty-two years after the release of "The Tale of Shimotsuma," Shimotsuma City is once again working with the film industry to create a new image of the city, not as a city that invites movies, but as a city where the power of movies takes root in the community, through cooperation between the public, private, and academic sectors. The city of Shimotsuma will promote city promotion with the aim of creating a new image of the city.

Shimotsuma City Access Map

Kou Shibasaki will participate in "MIRRORLIAR FILMS Season 10" as a film director!

　We are pleased to announce that "MIRRORLIAR FILMS Season 10" will be released in 2027.

　Kou Shibasaki will be participating in "MIRRORLIAR FILMS Season 10," which will be released in 2027. KANNAGI", in which she also appeared. The short film will be shot in Shimotsuma City, Ibaraki Prefecture. We are looking forward to seeing what kind of world Shibasaki will create in this short film! We have also received a comment from Shibasaki expressing her enthusiasm for the project!

Comment from Kou Shibasaki

　I am very happy to make my second short film as a director at MIRRORLIAR. KANNAGI" focused on poverty and depicted the intersection of the invisible world and the dark side of society.

　This time, however, I would like to change the angle drastically and express in an interesting way the sense of cause and effect and fate, which I myself have always cherished. I am looking forward to making another work with a different approach from my previous one!

What is MIRRORLIAR FILMS PROJECT - Toward film production in collaboration with the local community

　MIRRORLIAR FILMS, which started in 2020 and is produced by Chikara Ito, Shinnosuke Abe, Takayuki Yamada, and others, is a short film production project that transcends the boundaries between major and independent filmmakers.

　By collaborating with local communities across Japan to produce films, hold screenings, and workshops, MIRRORLIAR FILMS aims to be a participatory project based on the philosophy of "creating an era where anyone can make films.

　The project is unique in that it involves not only professional filmmakers and actors, but also local communities and local residents, and has been developed throughout Japan as a place for open learning and experience in filmmaking itself.

　This project is attracting attention as a project that simultaneously realizes human resource development and regional revitalization by communicating the unique value of the local area both domestically and internationally.

　In addition, we are utilizing the "corporate version of hometown tax payment" system to produce films with corporate donations as a regional development project of the local government.

　Through the production of films, we contribute to regional development and other forms of local creation by discovering local attractions and creating interaction among people regardless of age, occupation, or genre.

MIRRORLIAR FILMS Season 8 Okayama Film Project Screening Festival

■Film Production Project

　The concept of the film is "A place to return to now. ～ The project aims to evoke memories of a town to which people who were born and raised in Shimotsuma City, or spent their school days here, or have some other connection to Shimotsuma, will someday want to return, even though they now live in different areas of the city for different reasons. Through this public-private-academic collaboration project, we aim to nurture young human resources and foster pride and attachment to the city, while considering the attractiveness of Shimotsuma City from different perspectives, with the aim of revitalizing a community that is appropriate for the city.

　One of the features of this project is to collaborate with a prefectural high school in Shimotsuma City, where students, with independence and cooperation, will demonstrate their individuality through filmmaking and self-realize what they want to do in the project, aiming to make it a new educational proposal and a legacy for the city. The workshop, which will be held for high school students, will produce an original film work under the guidance of a professional filmmaker.

　In addition, an executive committee will be organized with local residents as the core members, and will work with a production company to build a system in which the community will work together as one, from preparation, filming, promotion, and release of the film.

　This will not only promote the film to the outside world, but will also create an opportunity to rediscover local attractions and foster civic pride.

　As the declining birthrate, aging population, and shrinking population become national issues, and the concentration of population in Tokyo is being called for, the entire community will work together in this project to become a "town of choice".

　In this film production, one feature film (shot in Shimotsuma City) and two short films (shot in Shimotsuma City, one of which will be directed by Kou Shibasaki. The director of the other film will be announced at a later date), three short films made from public submissions, one short film made in a workshop for high school students, and a making-of film highlighting the activities of Shimotsuma citizens, including the executive committee members.

Hiroshi Kikuchi, Mayor of Shimotsuma City

Chikara Ito, Producer

■The "Shimotsuma Academy" aims to learn and "the essence of the power of film

　A major key to this project is the establishment of an educational program that will run in parallel with the film production project. Various contents will be provided on the base of the educational program, and in 2026 and 2027, students will have the opportunity to actually experience the special experience of film production.

　By taking the opportunity of the film production project to create an unprecedented "learning" environment, we hope to focus on fostering people who are aware of their own dreams and hopes, and who will be able to survive in the future society. We have named this project "Shimotsuma Academy" and will continue to promote it.

　The goal of the "Shimotsuma Academy" is to maximize the power and potential of film, not only to acquire knowledge and skills, but also to nurture the "human skills" that will be required in society in the future.

　In the field of filmmaking, the ability to face questions that have no right answers, to imagine other people's lives, and to find value in everyday life is concentrated.

　Shimotsuma City sees this as the "essence of the power of film" and hopes to establish "learning that nurtures human ability," which is indispensable in this era of rapid change, in the local community.

The ability to face questions for which there are no right answers and to think things through on one's own.

The ability to imagine and live together with others, while being attentive to their backgrounds.

The ability to see the value in everyday life and connect it to the future.

We will disseminate these lessons from Shimotsuma City to the next generation, starting with films.

The circulatory regional model that "Shimotsuma Academy" is aiming for

　The "Shimotsuma Academy" is not a project that is completed in a single year.

　By building a system in the community whereby human resources who have been nurtured through this project can pass on their experiences and learning to the next generation, we will create a cycle whereby the community nurtures its people and their growth leads to the nurturing of the next generation.

　Through this cycle, we aim to make the local love for Shimotsuma stronger and richer.

Learning Cycle (Mentor 0B System)

　Students and young people who participate in the "Shimotsuma Academy" are continuously involved as leaders of the next generation, passing on their own learning and experience to the next generation, thereby accumulating learning and experience in the community. This cycle will form the foundation for Shimotsuma's unique human resource development.

Development into Industry and Local Activities / Value Creation for Immigrants and Settling in Shimotsuma

　The "ability to communicate," "ability to attract," and "ability to tell stories" cultivated through film will be applied to agriculture, commerce, tourism, and regional activities. Furthermore, by communicating the learning environment itself as "Shimotsuma's appeal from an educational perspective," we aim to visualize the richness of learning for the child-rearing generation and the culture of nurturing people throughout the region, and develop it as a value that will lead to immigration and permanent residence.

■Future Development

2026: MIRRORLIAR FILMS Season 10 production/Start of Shimotsuma Academy

2027: MIRRORLIAR FILMS Season10 will be released.

　　　　Place of release...(to be announced later)

　　　　Release tool...(to be announced)

　　　　Feature film production

2028: Feature film release...(Location and tools to be announced)