31ST RAINBOW REEL TOKYO INTERNATIONAL LESBIAN & GAY FILM FESTIVAL
Tokyo’s LGBT+ Festival Enters Its 3rd Decade
Dai 31 kai Rainbow Reel Tokyo –Tokyo Kokusai Lesbian & Gay Eigasai
第31回 レインボー・リール東京 ～ 東京国際レズビアン＆ゲイ映画祭〜
All non-English films have English subtitles.
Venue: Spiral Hall, EuroLive | Spiral Hall | July 15 (Sat) – 17 (Mon), 2023: EuroLive | July 21 (Fri) – 23 (Mon), 2023
Official website:
rainbowreeltokyo.com/2023web/en/about/
Theater website:
www.spiral.co.jp/en
Theater website:
eurolive.jp/access/
Theater website:
rainbowreeltokyo.com/2023web/en/schedule_en/
Tariff:
General: ￥1,700, Students: ￥1,500, Repeater/senior: ￥1,200, Handicapped: ￥1,000, Elementary: ¥700
Advance tickets: Under 22: Special discount. https://rainbowreeltokyo.com/2023web/en/ticket-2/
The Rainbow Reel Tokyo International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival turns 31 this year, with screenings, talk events and gatherings at two Tokyo venues, including its original home in Omotesando, Spiral Hall. While the selection is quite compact, RRT is reviving the Rainbow Reel Competition for the first time in six years, and will screen seven short films by Japanese filmmakers, with the audience selecting the grand prix-winning film.
For the first time in three years, RRT will return to its original home at Omotesando’s Spiral Hall. In Tokyo, seven titles s excellent, revealing Our House Party. While it does take place predominantly in interior settings, it sparkles with pointed and moving dialogue and boasts performances that are relaxed and authentic-feeling.
The festival is screening a total of 21 films, most of them award-winning LGBTQ+ cinema from outside Japan and ranging from shorts (in the Fantastic Asia!: Asian Shorts Program) to documentaries to dramas and comedies, so there’s a wealth of diversity on display. Best of all, RRT’s summer-festival atmosphere complements the screenings every year, bringing LGBTQ+ audiences and allies together for celebration and debate, education and encouragement.
Special Screening
Matchmaking dog/幸運の犬
Director: Macyo/まちょ
2022｜Japan｜53min｜Japanese｜Subtitles: English
Matchmaking Dog, by a director billed as Macyo, is the third film from Chikuwa Film, which is renowned for its three-hanky weepies — but always with happy tears. The film’s protagonist, Hige-pon, is middle aged, unlucky and forever single. He decides to commit suicide, but his dying lament changes everything. Suddenly, a dog appears and begins working miracles on Hige-pon’s love life. As the production notes put it, “The cast is full of beefy and attractive men!”
In the Rainbow Reel Competition, highlights include Ken Ochiai’s story of high-school friendship Strange; Tsuyoshi Shoji’s documentary Living Through, in which middle-aged and senior sexual minorities share their stories, filled with hope and fulfillment; and Tomoya Asanuma’s clever upending of reality, Change Minority, in in a society where heterosexuality is not accepted and a young man and woman are barred from legally starting a family.
Rainbow Reel Competition 2023
Change Minority/チェンジマイノリティ
Change Minority/チェンジマイノリティ
Director: Tomoya ASANUMA/浅沼智也
2023｜Japan｜8 min｜Japanese
Living Through/変わるまで、生きる
Living Through/変わるまで、生きる
Director: Tsuyoshi SHOJI/東海林毅
2023｜Japan｜10 min｜Japanese
STRANGE/ストレンジ
STRANGE/ストレンジ
Director: Ken OCHIAI/落合賢
2023｜Japan｜15 min｜Japanese
Spiral Hall
Euro Live
Please be sure to check with the theater before going.