Greenwich Lands North American Rights to Kōji Fukada's Cannes Drama 'Nagi Notes'

Greenwich Entertainment has acquired North American distribution rights to Nagi Notes, the Japanese drama that earned director Kōji Fukada his first Competition slot at the Cannes Film Festival, with a theatrical release set for the U.S. and Canada in early 2027. The deal was negotiated with Mk2's Quentin Bohanna on behalf of the producers, according to Deadline.

Nagi Notes is set in the rural Japanese town of Nagi and follows Yoriko, an artist still wrestling with a past romance. Her quiet life is upended by the arrival of Yuri, a Tokyo-based architect — and her former sister-in-law. The film had its world premiere in Competition at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, a milestone for Fukada, whose previous credits include the acclaimed Harmonium (2016).

Fukada's Competition berth placed him alongside Hirokazu Kore-eda and Ryûsuke Hamaguchi in the race for the Palme d'Or — the first time in 25 years that three Japanese filmmakers competed for Cannes' top prize simultaneously. The festival's official page lists Nagi Notes as a production of Japan, France, Singapore, and the Philippines, with a 2026 production year.

The film is a Japanese-French co-production between Fukada and Mk2, produced by Hassaku Labs, Star Sands, Survivance, Nathan Studios, Wonderstruck, and Momo Film Co. MK2 Films handles international sales worldwide, Variety reports.

Fukada has said the initial spark came from the Nagi Museum of Contemporary Art (Nagi MOCA) in Japan's Okayama Prefecture, according to Deadline. At Cannes, he told Reuters that artificial intelligence undermines the creative process, and that Nagi Notes was his way of reflecting on the human act of making something.

For audiences outside Japan, the Greenwich pickup means a theatrical path to seeing the film on screen rather than a streaming-only route. Greenwich, a distributor focused on independent and international cinema, will platform the release across North America — domestic, meaning the United States and Canada — in early 2027, roughly a year and a half after its Cannes premiere. That gap is typical for festival titles that need time to build word-of-mouth and secure screens in a crowded market.

The deal brings a filmmaker who has long been a critics' favourite on the festival circuit to a wider North American audience, on a release schedule that gives the film room to breathe.