37 Seconds

37 Seconds is a 2019 Japanese drama film written and directed by Hikari. The film features actress Mei Kayama, who has cerebral palsy, as 23-year-old Yuma Takada, a talented artist who wants to make her name in manga. A sympathetic magazine editor (Yuka Itaya) tells Takada her art is technically proficient but betrays her lack of worldly experience. Criticizing her depictions of sex as unconvincing, the editor tells the young woman, who uses a wheelchair to get around, to lose her virginity and then return. This sparks a voyage of self-discovery as she rebels against her over-protective mother and seeks out new experiences, trying to assert her budding independence. The film was screened at the 69th Berlin International Film Festival and won the Audience Award and the International Confederation of Art Cinemas’ Art Cinema Award in the festival's Panorama section.