Main programme  

Ryuichi runs a small Japanese company "I Want To Cheer You Up Ltd" operating it from his mobile phone and his laptop. He rents out people: family members, friends, colleagues or others, to help other people hide their secrets and make their life look better of just ...perfectly normal. On the surface Ryuichi has an ordinary family life. He is 44 years old, married and the father of two (always video-gaming) boys, and he has an ordinary 9 to 5 job. His life, however, is far from perfect: he and his wife have separate beds and he feels their Chihuahua dog best understands him. Ryuchi is most happy and thriving when he is at work impersonating as someone else's family. His own family has no knowledge of this and he therefore lives a double life himself. Will Ryuchi succeed in maintaining his secret or will he realize that helping others, requires the courage to help himself and expose his secret double life to his family? With a scenario reminiscent of a feature film, Rent a Family Inc. captures in raw documentary form the cold family relations of contemporary Japanese society.

Festivals

San Francisco International Film Festival, USA (2013)
Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival (2013)
International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival “One World”, Czech Republic (2013)

Kaspar Astrup Schröder

Kaspar Astrup Schröder was born in Denmark in 1979. Kaspar is a self-taught visual artist and designer. He founded his company Kaspar in 2004. Though based in Copenhagen, Kaspar often works in Asia. Has exhibited visual work and released music in Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Brussels, New York, Shenzhen and Tokyo. Kaspar Astrup Schröder's documentary “City Surfers” (2007) won Best Danish Film and Filmic Award at the D.A.F.F. Festival. “The Invention of Dr. Nakamats” (2009) was selected for IDFA's Mid-Length Competition.

Filmography

City Surfers (2007)
The Invention of Dr. Nakamats (2009)