Sado Tempest

It's been a long time since we heard from John Williams, the expat director responsible for the charming Firefly Dreams and the rather rum Starfish Hotel. For his third film, he heads to the barren island of Sado (a former penal colony that's now home to the taiko drumming group Kodo) for a rock'n'roll musical loosely based on Shakespeare's The Tempest. But we're a long way from Return to the Forbidden Planet here: drawing on elements of noh theatre and oni-daiko and suffused with a hallucinatory atmosphere, Sado Tempest is a far weirder trip. And with a legit band, Jitterbug, cast in the lead roles, it's also pretty rocking. Catch the film in a late screening at Eurospace this month, complete with English subtitles.