Director Kenji Uchida is working on his first film since his 2005 "Unmei Janai Hito" (also known as "A Stranger of Mine"), which earned him a great deal of attention when it picked up four awards at Cannes two years ago.

The new work is titled "After School" and stars Yo Oizumi as a junior high teacher who teams up with a shady detective (Kuranosuke Sasaki) to search for his missing childhood friend (Masato Sakai), encountering a former idol (Takako Tokiwa) along the way. This is Oizumi's first time in a solo lead.

"After School" is a big step up from "Unmei Janai Hito," in terms of the story's complexity and the movie's scale. While the earlier film was shot on 16mm with a budget of 25 million yen, the new project is being shot on 35mm with a budget of 180 million yen. Uchida compared the leap to racing, saying that he felt like he was "moving from the Formula 3000 to the Formula One."

Filming began in Yokohama on June 28. The movie is slated for a May 2008 release, but ten other countries have already put in inquiries and distribution offers. Uchida also hopes to take the film to Cannes, Berlinale, and other film festivals.