TOKYO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2015

Japan's Biggest Festival Is Back — and Better

Venue(s): Roppongi, Shinjuku, Higashi Ginza, Kyobashi
October 22 (Thur) - 31 (Sat)
Language: Japanese (and other languages) with English (and Japanese) subtitles
Official website: 2015.tiff-jp.net/en/
Tariff: Check TIFF’s website for all the details.
Advance tickets: Check TIFF’s website for all the details.
Talk event: Many, many, many — check TIFF’s website for all the details.

Title: 東京国際映画祭2015 (TOKYO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2015)

As the Tokyo International Film Festival nears its 30^th anniversary, rather than settling into middle age, it continues to expand and enhance, refine and redefine itself under Director General Yasushi Shiina. The 28^th TIFF, running from October 22 – 31 in both Roppongi and Shinjuku, will be hosting close to 200 films from around the world. That’s great news, but the even better news for Tokyo Filmgoer readers is that over half of the titles are from Japan, and all will be shown with English subtitles.

Highlights from this year’s 8-film Japanese Cinema Splash selection, devoted to new discoveries in the local industry, include Eiji Uchida’s followup to The Greatful Dead, Lowlife Love, produced by Adam Torel and starring indie icon Kiyohiko Shibukawa; Hirobumi Watanabe’s 7Days, featuring the director and his grandmother (acclaimed for her role in his 2013 cult film And the Mud Ship Sailed Away); and Their Distance, from Sad Tea director Rikiya Imaizumi. But there are always newcomers in this competition section, just waiting to be savored.

TIFF has made some exciting changes this year, launching two new sections that will focus exclusively on Japanese film: Japan Now and Japanese Classics. The selections in the latter category include the Japan premiere of the 4K digitally remastered Ran, a late masterpiece from Akira Kurosawa, the 4K digitally remastered Conflagration and the short doc Japan and the Japanese, both by the great Kon Ichikawa, and several remastered films in the Gamera series.

Japan Now was created to showcase outstanding Japanese titles from recent and upcoming months, providing an opportunity for those of us in Tokyo to see some of the year’s best work from Japanese directors. The 11-film lineup includes Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Cannes favorite Our Little Sister and Sion Sono’s personal-favorite Love and Peace, as well as some of our favorite films of the year: Pieta in the Toilet, Fires on the Plain, La La La at Rock Bottom and two phenomenal animated films, The Boy and the Beast and Sarusuberi: Miss Hokusai. Ryosuke Hashiguchi (Hush, All Around Us) will debut a beautiful new work, Three Stories of Love, that is heart-wrenching but hopeful. Also not to be missed, if you did, is Momoko Ando’s multiaward-winning 2014 film 0.5mm, starring everyone’s favorite actress (and her sister), Sakura Ando.

The Japan Now section also includes the selection of a Director in Focus who is known overseas but deserves greater recognition. TIFF’s inaugural choice is Masato Harada, whose 23-film, 30-year career has focused on some of Japan’s more compelling social problems, from racism against immigrants to teen prostitution to institutional corruption — and made each of them more exciting than the last. TIFF will be showcasing five of Harada’s best titles: Kamikaze Taxi (1994, marking the first of six starring vehicles for Koji Yakusho), Climber’s High (2008), Chronicle of My Mother (2011), Kakekomi (2015) and The Emperor in August (2015).

There are also three Japanese titles in the festival’s main Competition section: the latest by Koji Fukada, Sayonara, starring the talented quadrilingual actress Bryerly Long; the first film from Kohei Oguri in 8 years, Foujita, starring Joe Odagiri as the painter Leonard Foujita; and Fish Story helmer Yoshihiro Nakamura’s The Inerasable, a horror story.

There will be a special Masters of J-Horror all-night screening; another special performance of kabuki at Kabuki-za, prior to a screening of the digitally remastered Kurosawa film They Who Step on the Tiger’s Tail; a special 21-film showcase of animated films in The World of Gundam sidebar; and a 10-title tribute to beloved actor Ken Takakura, including Abashiri Prison, The Yellow Handkerchief and Zhang Yimou’s Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles.

And there is eversomuch more — check TIFF’s website for all the details.

 

Toho Cinemas Roppongi Hills

Shijuku Wald 9

Shinjuku Piccadilly

Toho Cinemas Shinjuku

Kabukiza