OSAKA ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL 2024
Osaka Bumps Up Foreign Presence for Its 19th Edition
Dai 19 Kai Osaka Asian Eigasai
第19回大阪アジアン映画祭
Multilanguage with Japanese and English subtitles
Venue: ABC Hall, Cine Libre Umeda, T-Joy Umeda, Nakanoshima Museum of Art | March 1 (Fri) - March 10 (Sun), 2024
Official website:
www.oaff.jp/en/
Theater website:
www.asahi.co.jp/abchall/map/
Theater website:
ttcg.jp/cinelibre_umeda/access/
Theater website:
tjoy.jp/t-joy_umeda
Tariff:
Adults: ¥1,300, Under 22: ¥500 for tickets at door.
Advance tickets: from Feb. 21 (Wed), 2024. https://oaff.jp/en/oaff2024/tickets/
The Osaka Asian Film Festival returns for its 19th iteration from March 1 – 10, with a large contingent of foreign guests in attendance (90 guests from more than 50 films), and a 63-film lineup that comprises an impressive 13 world premieres, 10 international premieres, 5 Asian premieres and 19 Japanese premieres. OAFF is Japan’s essential spring festival, a showcase for the discovery of new visions and voices, and the chance to get a first look at the best new films from around the region, nearly all of them with English subs. While Tokyo Filmgoer only covers Japanese films, we urge cinephiles to explore all the other titles on offer, since many of them are remarkable.
As in previous years, OAFF Programming Director Sozo Teruoka and his team have found just the right mix of commercially oriented arthouse fair and edgy work by emerging filmmakers, many of them from Japan. During its 10-day run, OAFF will present work from 24 nations and territories (as well as Asia-focused films from beyond the strict confines of the region), vying for prizes and critical attention in various sections: Competition, Spotlight, Indie Forum and Special Screenings, with Special Programs coming from Thailand, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
【Special Opening Film】March 5, 2024
The Moon Thieves/盜月者
Steve Yuen Kim-Wai
2024, 107 min, Japan Premiere
For Japanese film aficionados, there is much to savor, including the Opening and Closing films, although neither of them is entirely about Japan nor in Japanese. The already-SRO Special Opening Screening on March 5 sold out just minutes after the tickets went on sale, thanks to an enormous, global fan following for the film’s stars. Hong Kong’s Moon Thieves was partially shot in Japan and features three of the members of Hong Kong supergroup Mirror. A heist film with a team who fly over to steal three valuable watches from a shop in Tokyo, it looks like enormous fun. We’ll be waiting in line in the hopes that seats open up for this one!
【Closing Film】March 10, 2024
Tokyo Cowboy/東京カウボーイ
Marc Marriott
2023, 118 min, International Premiere
The Closing Film on March 10 is another cross-border title, Marc Marriott’s Tokyo Cowboy directed by an American, set mostly in Montana, it features Japanese star Arata Iura as a businessman hoping to boost the fortunes of a struggling cattle ranch by selling Wagyu beef. But once in beautiful Big Sky country, the city slicker has a lesson or two to learn. Iura and has castmates, including Ayako Fujitani, will join the filmmakers at the film’s international premiere screening in Osaka ahead of its Japan release in June.
【Competition】
Competition jury members Dave Boyle (writer-director of Netflix hit House of Ninjas), Atsuko Murata (CEO, Mimosa Films) and Angga Dwimas Sasongko (director) will consider the fortunes of 15 diverse films, including three Japanese titles:
Memories of His Scent/においが眠るまで
Kahori Higashi/東かほり/Japan
2024, 92 min, World Premiere
Kahori Higashi, whose debut feature Melting Sounds (2022) debuted at OAFF 2022, returns with the offbeat tale Memories of His Scent, about a high school girl who has a strong sense of smell. After reading a notebook left behind by her late father, in which he’s written about films he watched at mini-theaters across Japan, the girl sets off to find the one that seems most particularly pungent… and gradually discovers herself.
Snowdrop/スノードロップ
Kota Yoshida/吉田浩太/Japan
2024, 98 min, World Premiere
Kota Yoshida’s socially conscious drama Snowdrop follows Naoko, who has to quit her job to look after her parents. She faces innumerable challenges, struggling alone, until a city welfare caseworker offers sympathy and cracks of light.
Swimming in a Sand Pool/水深ゼロメートルから
Nobuhiro Yamashita/山下敦弘/Japan
2024, 84 min, World Premiere
Cult director Nobuhiro Yamashita (Linda, Linda, Linda) unveils his third film (so far!) this year, with Swimming in a Sand Pool, a coming-of-age drama-slash-deadpan comedy that begins at the bottom of an empty school pool. There, two high school girls spend part of their summer vacation cleaning it out as the sun blasts down.
Notably, this is the second film project based on an original play from the Tokushima City High School Drama Club, which wrote the hit On the Edge of Their Seats (2020, Hideo Jojo).
【Indie Forum】
The 12-film Indie Forum, the section for new discoveries at OAFF, has an impressive lineup of shorts and features, many of them directed by women. The Japan Cuts Award will be bestowed by the Japan Society of New York on a Japanese film. Highlights include:
Blue Imagine/ブルーイマジン
Urara Matsubayashi/松林麗/Japan, Philippines, Singapore
2024, 93 min, Asia Premiere
Urara Matsubayashi, an OAFF mainstay as an actress (Kamata Prelude, Saga Saga), makes her directorial debut with a #MeToo drama derived from her own challenging experiences in the film industry, Blue Imagine. While it may feel less hard-hitting than international films on the subject, the relationships that develop between the female characters in the film are supportive, essential and empowering.
Inch Forward/走れない人の走り方
Su Yu Chun/蘇鈺淳/Japan
2023, 83 min
Inch Forward is a buoyant film about filmmaking from Chinese director Su Yu Chun, who graduated from the Tokyo University of the Arts graduate film program. It follows Kiriko, an indie director whose road movie is beset with every conceivable difficulty, requiring endless compromises and constant collaboration. Especially on that beach shot that closes the film so triumphantly.
Performing KAORU's Funeral/カオルの葬式
Noriko Yuasa/湯浅典子/Japan, Spain, Singapore
2023, 100 min, -
Noriko Yuasa’s Performing Kaoru’s Funeral focuses on Kaoru, a writer and single mother of a daughter, whose will stipulates that her ex-husband should lead the funeral rites after she dies. What ensues is both comical and cathartic.
Wash Away/うぉっしゅ
Ikunosuke Okazaki/岡﨑育之介/Japan
2024, 114 min, World Premiere
Ikunosuke Okazaki’s Wash Away brings a welcome comical touch to the story of a young woman who must switch careers from highly paid soapland princess to her grandmother’s caregiver. Despite the elderly woman’s dementia, the two soon bond and learn uplifting lessons.
【Special Screenings】
Two recommended films are also included in the Special Screenings section:
Amalock/あまろっく
Kazuhiro Nakamura/中村和宏/Japan
2024, 119 min, World Premiere
Amalock stars one of our favorite actors, Noriko Eguchi, as a strident career woman named Yuko who is suddenly restructured and finds herself retreating to her small hometown. There, her 70-something father (legend Tsurube Shofukutei) announces that he’s remarrying… but when he brings home his intended, Yuko discovers that she’s only 20. Understandably, Yuko is scandalized, and much high dramedy ensues.
Brush of the God /カミノフデ ～怪獣たちのいる島～
Keizo Murase/村瀬継蔵/Japan
2024, 74 min, World Premiere
Brush of the God is billed as the first and last movie by Keizo Murase, the veteran sculptor and monster-suit maker for many tokusatsu and kaiju classics including Godzilla, Gamera, and Kamen Rider. Fittingly, the story follows a schoolgirl named Akari Tokimiya and the fantastical adventure that occurs when she goes to the memorial service of her grandfather Kenzo, a master special effects man. There, she meets her classmate Takuya, a tokusatsu superfan, and Hozumi, the star of the movie Kenzo was making when he died. Hozumi brings along a prop from the film, the titular “Brush of the God,” and soon the three are whisked into the film and seem unable to return home.
OAFF Theaters
Please be sure to check with the theater before going.