SKIP CITY INTERNATIONAL D-CINEMA FESTIVAL 2024
Highlighting New Directors from Japan
Venue(s): Skip City theater and Online screeningSkip City: July 13 (Sat), 2024 - July 21 (Sun), 2024
Official website: www.skipcity-dcf.jp/en/
Theater website: www.skipcity-dcf.jp/en/access.html
Tariff: Please visit the official site for details.
Advance tickets: Please visit the official site for details.
Talk event: Please visit the official site for details.
Title: SKIPシティ国際Dシネマ映画祭2024 (SKIP City Kokusai D-Cinema Eigasai 2024)
The Skip City International D-Cinema Festival in Kawaguchi, Saitama, enters its second decade with its 21st edition this year, and proves itself once again to be a major force for the discovery and nurturing of new Japanese talent. While there are many exciting international titles at the festival, running July 13-21 in the theater and online from July 20-24, our focus, as always, is on the English-subtitled Japanese films in the lineup.
This year’s festival will open with the world premiere of Takeshi Kushida’s Acting for Beginners, the story of a man who moves between dreams and reality against the backdrop of an abandoned factory where time seems to have stopped. The cast includes Katsuya Maiguma (Ken and Kazu), Ayaka Onishi, Kanade Iwata and Keiichiro Mori. This marks a return to the festival for Kushida, who premiered My Mother’s Eyes in competition at IDCF 2023, after winning the festival’s top award in 2020 with Woman of the Photographs.
Acting for Beginners
Director: Takeshi KUSHIDA, 2024 / Japan / 90min.
The festival received 1,201 submissions from 102 countries and regions for the International Competition, from which 10 films were selected, three of which will be Asian premieres, and six of which will be Japan premieres. Along with titles from Denmark, Germany, France, Hungary, Turkey, Uzbekistan and India, Yoshihiko Taniguchi will be world premiering her Happy Life. The film concerns a junior high school girl who faces enormous challenges when her family begins to fall apart after her mother dies.
Happy life
Director: Yoshihiko TANIGUCHI, 2024 / Japan / 91min.
This year’s International Competition jury will be presided over by acclaimed filmmaker Kazuya Shiraishi, who will also be screening his 2018 Dare to Stop Us.
The Japanese Film Competition highlights six films by emerging directors, five of which will receive their world premieres at Skip City, along with eight short films. They will be judged by a jury presided over by Satoko Yokohama, who will also screen her 2009 hit Bare Essence of Life, will bestow the Grand Prize and several other awards.
The six features playing in the competition are all world premieres, with the exception of Zhang Suming’s A Wasted Night. The director’s first feature, it follows two young sex workers on a nighttime walk through Tokyo after their van breaks down.
A Wasted Night
Director: ZHANG Suming, 2023 / Japan / 60min.
The other features are:
Tomohiro Hirota’s Lost in Reminiscence, which portrays the nightmare of Japan’s last 30 years through monochrome images, begging that question that the decades were not “lost,” but rather, stolen.
Lost in Reminiscence
Director: Tomohiro HIROTA, 2024 / Japan / 82min.
Jengil Park’s Poems of Flower Rain follows two sisters who choose different paths in life, as they take charge of their own lives, and seek happiness with those most important to them.
Poems of Flower Rain
Director: Jengil PARK, 2024 / Japan / 79min.
Hina Murata’s The Midnight Sun portrays the world of a young woman who has an interfering father and a hikikomori brother, as she discovers an alternative reality.
The Midnight Sun
Director: Hina MURATA, 2024 / Japan / 80min.
Hiroyuki Shintani’s The Next Day spends a spring evening with a young woman, her friend, assorted family members and unexpected visitors, as they watch a rare meteor shower.
The Next Day
Director: Hiroyuki SHINTANI, 2023 / Japan / 67min.
Yuki Ito’s Winter Stuff follows two best friends in Nagano, as they grow frustrated with the demands of the suffocating daily urban grind.
Winter Stuff
Director: Yuki ITO, 2024 / Japan / 74min.
Besides these titles, the festival also features films from other countries and all are subtitled in English, so you don’t have to confine your viewing choices to Japanese titles.
SKIPCITY
The Skip City International D-Cinema Festival in Kawaguchi, Saitama, enters its second decade with its 21st edition this year, and proves itself once again to be a major force for the discovery and nurturing of new Japanese talent. While there are many exciting international titles at the festival, running July 13-21 in the theater and online from July 20-24, our focus, as always, is on the English-subtitled Japanese films in the lineup.
This year’s festival will open with the world premiere of Takeshi Kushida’s Acting for Beginners, the story of a man who moves between dreams and reality against the backdrop of an abandoned factory where time seems to have stopped. The cast includes Katsuya Maiguma (Ken and Kazu), Ayaka Onishi, Kanade Iwata and Keiichiro Mori. This marks a return to the festival for Kushida, who premiered My Mother’s Eyes in competition at IDCF 2023, after winning the festival’s top award in 2020 with Woman of the Photographs.
Acting for Beginners
Director: Takeshi KUSHIDA, 2024 / Japan / 90min.
The festival received 1,201 submissions from 102 countries and regions for the International Competition, from which 10 films were selected, three of which will be Asian premieres, and six of which will be Japan premieres. Along with titles from Denmark, Germany, France, Hungary, Turkey, Uzbekistan and India, Yoshihiko Taniguchi will be world premiering her Happy Life. The film concerns a junior high school girl who faces enormous challenges when her family begins to fall apart after her mother dies.
Happy life
Director: Yoshihiko TANIGUCHI, 2024 / Japan / 91min.
This year’s International Competition jury will be presided over by acclaimed filmmaker Kazuya Shiraishi, who will also be screening his 2018 Dare to Stop Us.
The Japanese Film Competition highlights six films by emerging directors, five of which will receive their world premieres at Skip City, along with eight short films. They will be judged by a jury presided over by Satoko Yokohama, who will also screen her 2009 hit Bare Essence of Life, will bestow the Grand Prize and several other awards.
The six features playing in the competition are all world premieres, with the exception of Zhang Suming’s A Wasted Night. The director’s first feature, it follows two young sex workers on a nighttime walk through Tokyo after their van breaks down.
A Wasted Night
Director: ZHANG Suming, 2023 / Japan / 60min.
The other features are:
Tomohiro Hirota’s Lost in Reminiscence, which portrays the nightmare of Japan’s last 30 years through monochrome images, begging that question that the decades were not “lost,” but rather, stolen.
Lost in Reminiscence
Director: Tomohiro HIROTA, 2024 / Japan / 82min.
Jengil Park’s Poems of Flower Rain follows two sisters who choose different paths in life, as they take charge of their own lives, and seek happiness with those most important to them.
Poems of Flower Rain
Director: Jengil PARK, 2024 / Japan / 79min.
Hina Murata’s The Midnight Sun portrays the world of a young woman who has an interfering father and a hikikomori brother, as she discovers an alternative reality.
The Midnight Sun
Director: Hina MURATA, 2024 / Japan / 80min.
Hiroyuki Shintani’s The Next Day spends a spring evening with a young woman, her friend, assorted family members and unexpected visitors, as they watch a rare meteor shower.
The Next Day
Director: Hiroyuki SHINTANI, 2023 / Japan / 67min.
Yuki Ito’s Winter Stuff follows two best friends in Nagano, as they grow frustrated with the demands of the suffocating daily urban grind.
Winter Stuff
Director: Yuki ITO, 2024 / Japan / 74min.
Besides these titles, the festival also features films from other countries and all are subtitled in English, so you don’t have to confine your viewing choices to Japanese titles.
SKIPCITY
Please be sure to check with the theater before going.