Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on October 2013

After the March 11 disaster, director Akira Takayama staged a series of interactive “referendums” on nuclear power. Now one of Japan’s most consistently provocative directors returns with a look at the human stories—many of them foreign—that lie beneath the surface of Tokyo. Participants are given a special mobile radio and guidebook and then visit a range of spaces from restaurants and parks, while hearing about the people who live there, many of them Asian exchange students. The idea is to explore ideas of travel and Asian “otherness” or “heterotopia.”

Tickets can be exchanged for a tour kit (mobile radio and guide book) at the F/T info booth inside the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre Atrium. Nov 9-Dec 8, noon-7pm (various times), ¥1,000-3,500 (adv). Nearest stn: Ikebukuro. www.festival-tokyo.jp/en