The documentary CODA offers an intimate portrait of Ryuichi Sakamoto’s ingenious creativity and relentless process over his prolific career as a composer and musician. Following Sakamoto after he has undergone treatment for throat cancer, the film demonstrates the composer’s experimental spirit and meticulous craft in creating his nineteenth studio album, async. The album was inspired by his decades-long advocacy for protecting the environment, recordings of natural sounds from his travels and admiration for Andrei Tarkovsky’s science fiction film Solaris (1972). Tracing back to the year after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in early 2012, the documentary also shows him as a political activist who criticises the use of nuclear energy and weapons. In some of the archival footage, we are offered a glimpse of Sakamoto as a member of the synth-pop music group Yellow Magic Orchestra and as the conductor of his Oscar-winning score for The Last Emperor.

Stephen Nomura Schible (b. 1970, Japan) is a New York-based producer and director who studied film at New York University. Schible gained recognition for his documentary feature Ryuichi Sakamoto: CODA (2017), which premiered at the Venice International Film Festival, and its companion concert film Ryuichi Sakamoto: async at the Park Avenue Armory (2018), which premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival. Schible received the prestigious Houchi Film Award Special Prize for CODA.