When reality is not enough, we create our own.
Japanese video game auteur Hideo Kojima has long been known for transcending boundaries – between cinema and gaming, reality and imagination, play and philosophy. In NOWNESS Experiments: Intermission, director Haonan follows Kojima through the streets and bridges of Tokyo, weaving visual effects into the urban landscape to reveal not just a city, but an inner universe.
Kojima, the mind behind the globally acclaimed Death Stranding franchise, speaks about time, extinction, and the essence of “fun”. But these reflections are never mere abstractions. For him, world-building is not only about creating alternate realities; it is about understanding the codes and emotions that govern our own.
In Intermission, Tokyo itself becomes an extension of Kojima’s mind. The short film integrates cinematic illusions into everyday city scenes, dissolving the border between imagination and the concrete. We follow him to his favourite cinema, where the boundaries between film, life, and game blur into one.
Kojima’s creations are a reminder: worlds are not only built with pixels and polygons, but with questions. What is time? What remains when we are gone? How do we keep playing, even as the world changes around us?
Perhaps this is his true genius – seeing art not as an escape from life, but as a way to expand it.