As a book designer, Kikuchi Nobuyoshi has drafted more than 10,000 covers. Working the traditional way, with graph paper, ruler, printed-out Kanji (the Japanese letters) and tape, every copy is first created by the most delicate haptic work, before his assistant, with whom he has been collaborating for more than thirty years, transfers the finished design to the computer. Kikuchi’s books represent a considered, minimalist aesthetics in which every single element – cover, binding, spine, marker ribbon – continues the story he encountered while reading it. Renowned writers like Furui Yoshikichi, who translated Robert Musil and others into Japanese, trust the intuition and skill of Kikuchi, who claims that he has grown increasingly empty over the decades. In her gentle portrait, director Hirose Nanako shows a man whose whole lifestyle is shaped by an elegant and cultivated attitude to things – whether it’s brewing freshly ground coffee, using an old gramophone or strolling through a Tokyo flea market.

Carolin Weidner

Jakob enters the Benjamenta siblings’ servants’ school. The protagonist of Robert Walser’s novel “Jakob von Gunten”, which was published in 1909, becomes an observer of a place that lies still and dreams. The pupils still take mysterious exercises, for example the canon of the singing forks. But the soul of the institute glows in hidden chambers. The Brothers Quay’s first feature film features a brilliant cast, but breathes the spirit of animation. Just as Walser’s language personifies matter and states of being and objectifies persons, objects, light and the forest take over that role in the film.

André Eckardt