Congratulations to Mr. Koji Yakusho on Winning Best Actor at Cannes for His Role as a Toilet Cleaner in Tokyo

Congratulations to Mr. Koji Yakusho on winning the best actor award at the 76th Cannes Film Festival for his role in the film “Perfect Days” directed by legendary German director Mr. Wim Wenders. The film is a deeply moving tale about a man who seems utterly content with his simple life as a public toilet cleaner in Tokyo.

Mr. Yakusho became the second Japanese actor to win the prize, following Mr. Yuya Yagira, who won it at age 14 in 2004 for “Nobody Knows.” Mr. Yakusho jokingly said: “I wonder if I have finally caught up with Yagira.”

"Perfect Days" was filmed “fast and furious” in Tokyo in October 2022 by Mr. Wenders, who is widely known for producing such masterpieces as “Paris, Texas" in 1984, "Wings of Desire" in 1987, “Buena Vista Social Club” in 1996 and “Pina” in 2011.

Mr. Yakusho appears in most scenes of the 124-minute movie in which he plays a sanitation worker named Hirayama who cleans some of the 17 public restrooms renovated in Shibuya Ward in central Tokyo.

The toilets were installed under the “The Tokyo Toilet” (TTT) project launched in 2020 by The Nippon Foundation with the backing of the Shibuya municipal government and Mr. Koji Yanai, director of Fast Retailing, which operates the UNIQLO clothing retail chain in many countries. Mr. Yanai played a key role in inviting Mr. Wenders, one of the giants of European cinema, to direct the film, bringing a breath of fresh air to the Japanese film industry.

The toilets were designed by 16 internationally-renowned architects, including laureates of the Pritzker Architecture Prize (often referred to as “architecture’s Nobel”) such as Mr. Tadao Ando and Mr. Shigeru Ban, with the aim of changing people's perceptions of public toilets as smelly, dark, dirty, and dangerous and making them accessible to everyone regardless of gender, age, or disability.

The film’s release date in Japan has yet to be decided.

But apparently on the strength of Mr. Yakusho winning the best actor award, “Perfect Days” has sold out worldwide, according to Variety, an American entertainment magazine. The Match Factory is handling international sales. North American rights went to Neon and France to Haut et Court.

Further sales include U.K./Ireland/Latin America/Turkey (MUBI), Australia/New Zealand (Madman), Benelux (Paradiso), China (DDDream), Italy (Lucky Red), Spain (A Contracorriente), Switzerland (DCM), Baltics (A-One Baltics), Bulgaria (Art Fest), CIS (A-One), Czech Republic and Slovakia (Aerofilms), Former Yugoslavia (MCF), Greece (Feelgood Entertainment), Hong Kong (Edko Films), Hungary (Cirko), Israel (Lev Cinemas), Poland (Gutek), Portugal (Alambique), Romania (Bad Unicorn), Scandinavia (Future Film) and Taiwan (Applause).

When I was chairman of the Foundation of Japan Motor Boat Racing Association in the late 1990s, we ran TV commercials starring Mr. Yakusho, which caught on well with viewers.

Under the TTT project, the last of the 17 public toilets, designed by Mr. Sou Fujimoto, design producer of the 2025 Osaka Kansai World Expo site, was opened to the public on March 24.

One of the toilets that Hirayama, played by Mr. Yakusho, cleans in the film was designed by Mr. Shigeru Ban. Featuring transparent glass walls, it created a stir around the world when it was unveiled in August 2020.

Transparent when the toilet is unoccupied, the glass turns opaque when the doors are locked. The see-through design allows potential users to tell from the outside if the facilities are clean and whether or not someone is inside.

I would like to take this opportunity to express my heartfelt gratitude to the 16 designers and all the others involved in this project, including the staff of The Nippon Foundation, for their painstaking efforts to complete the toilets by the end of this March despite all the difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

I also salute the cleaning staff who clean the restrooms three times a day for keeping them in pristine condition. It takes diligent maintenance work by sanitation workers to ensure that people can use the toilets safely and comfortably.

I sincerely hope that many people across the world will see the movie and discover these “small sanctuaries of peace and dignity,” as Mr. Wenders describes the Tokyo public toilets that feature in the movie.

For details of The Tokyo Toilet project (TTT), please visit its website.