38TH TOKYO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2025

The 38th edition of the Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) boasts not only a greatly expanded lineup this year — nearly 200 titles — but also an impressive number of premieres from celebrated auteurs like Rithy Panh, Zhang Lu, Amos Gitai, Pen-Ek Ratanaruang and Chong Keat Aun. Celebrating the 100th anniversary of Yukio Mishima’s birth, it will host the very first public showing in Japan of Paul Schrader’s 1985 masterpiece Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters. Japanese titles appear in every section, many of them unmissable. As always, screenings will be held across venues in the Yurakucho-Hibiya-Marunouchi-Ginza area for 10 days (October 27 - November 5) and TIFF’s complete lineup is subtitled in English, with only a handful of exceptions. So be ready with your Must Watch list — tickets go on sale Saturday, October 18 and will sell out fast.

TIFF Programming Director Shozo Ichiyama proves he has a magic wand with this year’s lineup, and celebrities like Juliette Binoche (coming with her directorial debut, In-I in Motion) are expected from far and wide. The director of the year’s biggest domestic live-action hit, Kokuho, Lee Sang-il, will be receiving the Kurosawa Akira Award along with Oscar winner Chloé Zhao, who will screen her new Oscar contender, Hamnet. There will be ample Q&A sessions with many filmmakers and stars (with English interpretation usually available — be sure to raise your hand if they ask, “Does anyone need English?”), along with the popular TIFF Lounge talk sessions, a range of masterclasses, panels, symposia and other special gatherings with invited guests.

Here's a brief overview of the Japanese films in the festival — but we urge you to explore the full lineup, since there are many, many non-Japanese films not to be missed.

Screening Info

Climbing For Life, てっぺんの向こうにあなたがいる

Director: Sakamoto Junji (阪本順治)
130 min, Color, 2025, Japan
©2025 “CLIMBING FOR LIFE” FILM PARTNERS

This year’s Opening Film is the Japan premiere of Junji Sakamoto’s Climbing for Life, based on the true-life story of groundbreaking mountaineer Junko Tabei, the first woman ever to summit Mt. Everest. As a young woman, Junko (played by Non), founds a Ladies Climbing Club with the slogan of "Let's go on an overseas expedition by ourselves," and in 1975, succeeds in leading the first all-female ascent of the world’s highest mountain. Tabei successfully summitted the highest peaks in 76 countries during her lifetime, and then, as illness beset her, continued to lead others to discover the joys of mountaineering. Acting legend Sayuri Yoshinaga is perfectly cast as the steely but inspiring Junko (in her later years), and as the film reveals, Junko’s husband (played in later years by Koichi Sato) played no small role in her many accomplishments. Sakamoto skirts sentimentality and delivers a truly stirring tribute to a pioneering woman.

The Centerpiece film also features a spunky older woman, played by another of Japan’s legendary actors, Chieko Baisho (Plan 75, Tora-san series). Baisho has worked with iconic director Yoji Yamada since her film debut in 1965 (Kiri no Hata), and here, in Yamada’s 91st feature, Tokyo Taxi, she demonstrates masterfully just how much can be conveyed from the closed confines of a moving vehicle. Playing the elegant, upper-class Madame Sumire, who has hired Takuya Kimura to drive her from eastern Tokyo to a retirement home in Yokohama, she is charming but indomitable, feisty but forlorn, and her chemistry with Kimutaku is as magical as the ending of the story. The film is adapted from the 2022 French film Driving Madeleine, but Yamada makes it his own, showcasing beloved Tokyo scenes through the windows, from Shibamata (Tora-san’s hometown) to Jingu Gaien Ginkgo Avenue to the Bay Bridge.何

Competition

TIFF’s 15-film Competition section, selected from among 1,970 submissions from 108 countries and regions, includes very prominent names. There are two Japanese films in the section this year, both world premieres: Yuichiro Sakashita’s Blonde and Ryutaro Nakagawa’s Echoes of Motherhood, marking the first time either man has been in such a prominent section at TIFF. The Competition Jury is comprised of Italian film critic Carlo Chatrian, Taiwanese actor Gwei Lun-Mei, French film editor Mathieu Lacroix, Japanese actor/filmmaker Saitoh Takumi, and Chinese filmmaker/producer Vivian Qu.

Journey Into Sato Tadao, 佐藤忠男、映画の旅

Director: Terasaki Mizuho (寺崎みずほ)
98 min, Color, 2025, Japan
©2025 Group Gendai Films Co., Ltd.

The section’s opening film is a special documentary, Journey into Sato Tadao, directed by Mizuho Terasaki, which traces the 60 years the renowned film critic spent searching for and watching Asian films. With over 150 published works to his name, the man who opened Japanese doors and minds to Asian cinema, is remembered by a range of celebrated filmmakers from the region just a year after his death. At the center of the documentary is Kummatty (lit. The Bogeyman), a 1979 Malayalam Indian film written and directed by G. Aravindan, which Sato considered his “treasure.” Terasaki herself takes viewers on a journey in search of that treasure. (Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation restored the children’s classic in 2021.)

Kiiroiko, 黄色い子

Director: Imai Mika (今井ミカ)
72 min, Color, 2025, Japan
©SANDO PLUS

Kiiroiko is thought to be the first film made by a deaf cast and crew from Japan and Taiwan. Directed by Mika Imai, it tells the story of a deaf older man in Taipei who finds and begins to bond with a lost Japanese child, who is also deaf.

The Chatterboxes, みんなおしゃべり

Director: Kawai Ken (河合健)
143 min, Color,2025, Japan
©2025 “The Chatterboxes” Production Committee

The Chatterboxes also features deaf characters and cast members, and is groundbreaking in its bold approach to demonstrating how language barriers help the world's divisions deepen. Deploying an extremely humorous style to the story of an escalating contretemps that pits Outsiders vs. Outsiders, director Ken Kawai (who is himself a CODA) sets the film in an old Tokyo neighborhood that is trying to stay alive by welcoming international residents like the many Kurds who have moved in. In a white goods store run by a deaf man named Koga, a minor understanding caused by a customer gradually escalates into a neighborhood incident that threatens to turn really ugly. Natsumi, the only hearing member of the Koga family, attempts to mediate with Hiwa, the only one of the Kurds who speaks Japanese. As they begin to develop feelings for each other, a drawing by Shun, Natsumi’s little brother becomes a new flashpoint and soon, the entire town is at war.

The film cleverly captures the real-life challenges faced both by the deaf and by second-generation Kurds in Japan, and tips its hat at Tokyo’s culturally and linguistically diverse audience. As Kawai writes, “Subtitles are an integral part of this film's expression. Rather than pursuing so-called ‘barrier-free’ subtitles, we created original subtitles that actively utilize the ‘barrier.’ There are things only audiences with their respective first languages can see or feel, and it is precisely this ‘discrepancy’ and ‘omission’ that forms the core of this film.”

There are also films of note from two graduates of the Tokyo University of the Arts, Yukari Sakamoto’s enigmatic Christian girls’ boarding-school drama White Flowers and Fruits, which premiered at the San Sebastian Film Festival and was produced by Teruhisa Yamamoto of Drive My Car fame; and Yang Liping’s Echoes of the Orient, which features Japanese and Chinese characters, as did his Amazon Prime Video Take One Award-winner Gone with the Wind (2023) and his Ashes (2024), both of which premiered at TIFF.

Gala Selection

Among the Japanese films in the 13-film Gala Selection—which is a catch-all for films scheduled for upcoming release in Japanese theaters—is the deeply affecting period tale Blue Boy Trial from Kasho Iizuka (Angry Son). Torn from 1960s tabloid headlines, it traces how a loophole in Japan’s new anti-prostitution laws exempted male sex workers—known as “blue boys.” Unable to arrest the blue boys themselves, authorities instead targeted the surgeon who had performed gender-affirming surgeries for some of them, leading to a sensational trial that inspires the film. It features exceptionally gifted transgender actors and stunning production design, all in the service of important points that echo today’s gender debates.

Blue Boy Trial, ブルーボーイ事件

Director: Iizuka Kashou (飯塚花笑)
106 min, Color, 2025, Japan
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