34TH TOKYO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
TIFF Makes Hibiya-Yurakucho-Ginza Its New Home
Venue(s): At Hibiya-Yurakucho-Ginza areaOctober 30 (Sat) - November 8 (Mon), 2021 Details: https://2020.tiff-jp.net/en/schedule/list/2020-10-31
Language: Japanese (and other languages) with English (and Japanese) subtitles
Official website: 2021.tiff-jp.net/en/
Theater website: 2021.tiff-jp.net/en/access/
Tariff: Please check the official site: https://2020.tiff-jp.net/en/ticket/
Advance tickets: https://2021.tiff-jp.net/en/ticket/ If sold out online, the box office has day-of sales
Talk event: Many in person as well as online — check TIFF’s website for all the details.
Title: 第34回東京国際映画祭 (Dai 34 Kai Tokyo Kokusai Eigasai)
Like many film festivals in the time of Covid, the Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) responded last year by implementing changes to accommodate the new normal. This year, the changes are truly transformative: the festival has relocated for the first time in 17 years, from Roppongi to the Hibiya-Yurakucho-Ginza area, and it has a new programming director at the helm, Shozo Ichiyama, the founder and head of Tokyo FILMeX for 21 years. For its 34th edition, TIFF is cautiously rolling out nearly 100 films across several revamped/expanded/ renamed sections, and hosting many events online. The screenings will all be held physically, with strict Covid-19 safety measures in place, from October 30 – November 8.
As ever, TIFF’s films are all subtitled in English. The homegrown films will also feature English-interpreted Q&A sessions with the filmmakers and stars, and if you watch non-Japanese titles, you’ll be able to view online Q&As for many of them. We urge you to explore the full lineup, since there are many, many films to savor—including two new ones from award-winning Philippine director and TIFF regular Brillante Ma Mendoza, Payback and Gensan Punch, the latter inspired by the true story of a disabled Japanese athlete who goes to the Philippines to pursue a career as a boxer when he’s denied a license in Japan.
Gensan Punch
Gensan Punch
Director: Brillante Ma. Mendoza
©2021 GENSAN PUNCH Production Committee
Acclaimed French actress Isabelle Huppert will be serving as president of the International Competition Jury, presiding with director Shinji Aoyama, film critic Chris Fujiwara, composer Hiroko Sebu and producer Lorna Tee. The Competition lineup includes 15 films, 10 of them world premieres, selected from among 1,533 titles from 113 countries and regions. Two of the titles are from Japan: Just Remembering by Daigo Matsui, and Third Time Lucky by Tadashi Nohara.
Competition
Just Remembering
Just Remembering
Director: Daigo Matsui
©2022 "Just Rememberring" Film Partners
Matsui was last at TIFF with Ice Cream and the Sound of Raindrops (2018), but he has since made three films. Once again motivated by the music of Sekaikan Ozaki of Creephyp (see his 2013 How Selfish I Am!), he was inspired to set his newest work during the pandemic. Just Remembering stars two of our favorite actors, Sosuke Ikematsu (Miyamoto, A Girl Missing) and Sairi Itoh (Love and Other Cults, The Naked Director 2) as a former couple who recall their annual July 26 ritual, when they felt like the only two people in the world, over the course of several years leading up to the Covid pandemic, when everything abruptly changed.
Third Time Lucky
Third Time Lucky
Director: Tadashi Nohara
©2021 NEOPA Inc
Tadashi Nohara is best known as the cowriter of Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s award-winning Happy Hour (2015) and Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s award-winning Wife of a Spy (2020). His feature directing debut, Third Time Lucky, shares much in common with the 2015 film, including actress Rira Kawamura, who starred as Jun in Happy Hour, among other cast members. She plays a troubled young woman whose partner, a psychiatrist, leaves her. She comes across a young man with memory problems and tries to help him, while her brother and sister-in-law grapple with their own problems. This ensemble drama set in Kobe parses the lives of emotionally repressed characters and the challenges of parenthood.
Nippon Cinema Now
The Nippon Cinema Now section replaces the previous Japanese Cinema Splash and Japan Now sections. Explaining the change, Programming Director Ichiyama said, “I wanted emerging Japanese directors to compete on a world-class level with other directors, not just have their own section, so we have included them in the Asian Future section as well as in the Competition lineup.”
The Unnamable Dance
The Unnamable Dance
Director: Isshin Inudo
©2021 "THE UNNAMABLE DANCE" FILM COMMITTEE
There are 10 films in the section, none of them comedies (blame it on the pandemic), but Isshin Inudo’s The Unnamable Dance, focusing on dancer/actor extraordinaire Min Tanaka, is suffused with joy and vitality. Two of the titles in the section are directed by women — Naoko Ogigami’s Riverside Mukolitta looks at the rather forlorn denizens of a crumbling apartment building, while Mayu Nakamura’s psycho-thriller Intimate Stranger follows a lonely woman searching for her missing son, and the young man who becomes his surrogate.
Moonlight Shadow
Moonlight Shadow
Director: Edmund Yeo
©2021 “MoonlightShadow” Production Committee
TIFF favorite and 2017 Best Director winner (for Aqera) Edmund Yeo is back following last year’s TIFF world premiere of Malu with a heartbreaking exploration of love and grief, Moonlight Shadow. The Malaysian director’s adaptation of a novel by Banana Yoshimoto, it features a performance of raw anguish by Nana Komatsu that is impossible to look away from.
Nippon Cinema Now Director in Focus
Blue
Blue
Director: Keisuke Yoshida
©2021 “BLUE” Film Partners
Singular director Keisuke Yoshida was named the Nippon Cinema Now Director in Focus, and three of his recent films will be highlighted, including two from this year that are both quite extraordinary. Blue, a thoroughly engrossing ensemble piece, stars Kenichi Matsuyama, Masahiro Higashide and Tokio Emoto as three boxers at the same gym, and Fumino Kimura is the woman loved by two of them. Yoshida himself choreographs the fight scenes, and boxing has never looked more authentic.
Intolerance
Intolerance
Director: Keisuke Yoshida
©2021 "Intolerance" Film Partners
Yoshida’s Intolerance is a film of exhilarating dramatic power that features a perfectly calibrated screenplay and a towering, career-best performance from veteran character actor Arata Furuta. He plays a father faced with a tragedy that not only aggrieves him but plays on his worst feelings of guilt — and a relentlessly manipulative press is there to capture his rage, as he gives vent to it in public.
TIFF Classics
Finally, if you’re looking for something a bit more old-school, look no further than TIFF Classics, which this year features such highlights as the 4K digitally restored The Family Game, marking a decade since director Yoshimitsu Morita died; and a much-deserved tribute to Kinuyo Tanaka (1909-1977), one of Japan’s most acclaimed actresses who, following WWII, became one of its first women directors. TIFF is screening four of her masterpieces as director, all in 4K restored versions.
Conversation Series at Asia Lounge
Finally, because it’s still difficult for international guests to attend in person, the second year of the nightly Conversation Series at Asia Lounge, a collaboration between TIFF and the Japan Foundation Asia Center that is overseen by Palme d’Or winner Hirokazu Kore-eda, will not be entirely physical, as hoped. But several foreign guests will be there in person, and all the conversations will stream on TIFF’s YouTube channel. Among the pair-ups of leading Asian/other filmmakers and their peers in Japan are: Isabelle Huppert and Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Chang Chen and Kore-eda, Brillante Ma Mendoza and Masatoshi Nagase, Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Hidetoshi Nishijima and…drum roll, please!... Bong Joon Ho and Mamoru Hosoda.
TIFF theaters in Hibiya, Yurakucho, Ginza
Like many film festivals in the time of Covid, the Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) responded last year by implementing changes to accommodate the new normal. This year, the changes are truly transformative: the festival has relocated for the first time in 17 years, from Roppongi to the Hibiya-Yurakucho-Ginza area, and it has a new programming director at the helm, Shozo Ichiyama, the founder and head of Tokyo FILMeX for 21 years. For its 34th edition, TIFF is cautiously rolling out nearly 100 films across several revamped/expanded/ renamed sections, and hosting many events online. The screenings will all be held physically, with strict Covid-19 safety measures in place, from October 30 – November 8.
As ever, TIFF’s films are all subtitled in English. The homegrown films will also feature English-interpreted Q&A sessions with the filmmakers and stars, and if you watch non-Japanese titles, you’ll be able to view online Q&As for many of them. We urge you to explore the full lineup, since there are many, many films to savor—including two new ones from award-winning Philippine director and TIFF regular Brillante Ma Mendoza, Payback and Gensan Punch, the latter inspired by the true story of a disabled Japanese athlete who goes to the Philippines to pursue a career as a boxer when he’s denied a license in Japan.
Gensan Punch
Gensan Punch
Director: Brillante Ma. Mendoza
©2021 GENSAN PUNCH Production Committee
Acclaimed French actress Isabelle Huppert will be serving as president of the International Competition Jury, presiding with director Shinji Aoyama, film critic Chris Fujiwara, composer Hiroko Sebu and producer Lorna Tee. The Competition lineup includes 15 films, 10 of them world premieres, selected from among 1,533 titles from 113 countries and regions. Two of the titles are from Japan: Just Remembering by Daigo Matsui, and Third Time Lucky by Tadashi Nohara.
Competition
Just Remembering
Just Remembering
Director: Daigo Matsui
©2022 "Just Rememberring" Film Partners
Matsui was last at TIFF with Ice Cream and the Sound of Raindrops (2018), but he has since made three films. Once again motivated by the music of Sekaikan Ozaki of Creephyp (see his 2013 How Selfish I Am!), he was inspired to set his newest work during the pandemic. Just Remembering stars two of our favorite actors, Sosuke Ikematsu (Miyamoto, A Girl Missing) and Sairi Itoh (Love and Other Cults, The Naked Director 2) as a former couple who recall their annual July 26 ritual, when they felt like the only two people in the world, over the course of several years leading up to the Covid pandemic, when everything abruptly changed.
Third Time Lucky
Third Time Lucky
Director: Tadashi Nohara
©2021 NEOPA Inc
Tadashi Nohara is best known as the cowriter of Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s award-winning Happy Hour (2015) and Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s award-winning Wife of a Spy (2020). His feature directing debut, Third Time Lucky, shares much in common with the 2015 film, including actress Rira Kawamura, who starred as Jun in Happy Hour, among other cast members. She plays a troubled young woman whose partner, a psychiatrist, leaves her. She comes across a young man with memory problems and tries to help him, while her brother and sister-in-law grapple with their own problems. This ensemble drama set in Kobe parses the lives of emotionally repressed characters and the challenges of parenthood.
Nippon Cinema Now
The Nippon Cinema Now section replaces the previous Japanese Cinema Splash and Japan Now sections. Explaining the change, Programming Director Ichiyama said, “I wanted emerging Japanese directors to compete on a world-class level with other directors, not just have their own section, so we have included them in the Asian Future section as well as in the Competition lineup.”
The Unnamable Dance
The Unnamable Dance
Director: Isshin Inudo
©2021 "THE UNNAMABLE DANCE" FILM COMMITTEE
There are 10 films in the section, none of them comedies (blame it on the pandemic), but Isshin Inudo’s The Unnamable Dance, focusing on dancer/actor extraordinaire Min Tanaka, is suffused with joy and vitality. Two of the titles in the section are directed by women — Naoko Ogigami’s Riverside Mukolitta looks at the rather forlorn denizens of a crumbling apartment building, while Mayu Nakamura’s psycho-thriller Intimate Stranger follows a lonely woman searching for her missing son, and the young man who becomes his surrogate.
Moonlight Shadow
Moonlight Shadow
Director: Edmund Yeo
©2021 “MoonlightShadow” Production Committee
TIFF favorite and 2017 Best Director winner (for Aqera) Edmund Yeo is back following last year’s TIFF world premiere of Malu with a heartbreaking exploration of love and grief, Moonlight Shadow. The Malaysian director’s adaptation of a novel by Banana Yoshimoto, it features a performance of raw anguish by Nana Komatsu that is impossible to look away from.
Nippon Cinema Now Director in Focus
Blue
Blue
Director: Keisuke Yoshida
©2021 “BLUE” Film Partners
Singular director Keisuke Yoshida was named the Nippon Cinema Now Director in Focus, and three of his recent films will be highlighted, including two from this year that are both quite extraordinary. Blue, a thoroughly engrossing ensemble piece, stars Kenichi Matsuyama, Masahiro Higashide and Tokio Emoto as three boxers at the same gym, and Fumino Kimura is the woman loved by two of them. Yoshida himself choreographs the fight scenes, and boxing has never looked more authentic.
Intolerance
Intolerance
Director: Keisuke Yoshida
©2021 "Intolerance" Film Partners
Yoshida’s Intolerance is a film of exhilarating dramatic power that features a perfectly calibrated screenplay and a towering, career-best performance from veteran character actor Arata Furuta. He plays a father faced with a tragedy that not only aggrieves him but plays on his worst feelings of guilt — and a relentlessly manipulative press is there to capture his rage, as he gives vent to it in public.
TIFF Classics
Finally, if you’re looking for something a bit more old-school, look no further than TIFF Classics, which this year features such highlights as the 4K digitally restored The Family Game, marking a decade since director Yoshimitsu Morita died; and a much-deserved tribute to Kinuyo Tanaka (1909-1977), one of Japan’s most acclaimed actresses who, following WWII, became one of its first women directors. TIFF is screening four of her masterpieces as director, all in 4K restored versions.
Conversation Series at Asia Lounge
Finally, because it’s still difficult for international guests to attend in person, the second year of the nightly Conversation Series at Asia Lounge, a collaboration between TIFF and the Japan Foundation Asia Center that is overseen by Palme d’Or winner Hirokazu Kore-eda, will not be entirely physical, as hoped. But several foreign guests will be there in person, and all the conversations will stream on TIFF’s YouTube channel. Among the pair-ups of leading Asian/other filmmakers and their peers in Japan are: Isabelle Huppert and Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Chang Chen and Kore-eda, Brillante Ma Mendoza and Masatoshi Nagase, Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Hidetoshi Nishijima and…drum roll, please!... Bong Joon Ho and Mamoru Hosoda.
TIFF theaters in Hibiya, Yurakucho, Ginza
Please be sure to check with the theater before going.