Miwa Nishikawa returns to TIFF for the first time in six years with a deeply thorough and engaging historical odyssey. An adaptation of a soon-to-be-released novel of the same name (also by Nishikawa), Children Untold ’s narrative follows the story of Kotoko Kayano, who, after losing her family, disguises herself as a boy and joins a group of orphans, eventually taking the audience on a tragic and empathetic tale about how horribly war displaces families and abandons children who are in need of support.  From the very first frame of Children Untold , the audience is thrown into a post-war view of Tokyo that captures the magic of experiencing art as a child and directly juxtaposes it with moments of violence and anger—between children and adults alike. Just like the experiences these children face, the movie does not hold back in demonstrating the miserable brutality of war. It makes for a deeply unsettling and consistently uncomfortable viewing experience, but i...