TOKYO FILMeX 2022

This year’s FILMeX Competition comprises 9 new films by emerging filmmakers in Asia.

Acclaimed Cambodian documentarian Rithy Panh (The Missing Picture) will preside over an international jury that also includes film historian and programmer Kiki Fung and director  Kim Hee Jung (A French Woman). The panel will award the Grand Prize (¥700,000) and the Special Jury Prize (¥300,000) on the festival’s penultimate night. There will also be an Audience Award chosen from across all sections, and the Student Jury Prize.

Stonewalling

Stonewalling
Japan / 2022 / 150 min
Directors: HUANG Ji & Ryuji OTSUKA

Chinese director Huang Ji and her husband, Japanese cinematographer-producer Ryuji Otsuka, have collaborated for the third time on the much-buzzed-about Stonewalling, which alights at FILMeX shortly after its world premiere the Venice International Film Festival and a heralded berth at the New York Film Festival. Their collaboration also extends to actress Yao Honggui, star of their previous films, The Foolish Bird (2007) and Egg and Stone (2012).

Yao plays Lynn, a 20-year-old who’s training to be a flight attendant when she discovers that she’s pregnant. As she struggles to decide what to do—her callow boyfriend urges her to have an abortion—she realizes her decision may actually assist her parents, the owners of a local clinic who have become ensnared in a medical malpractice suit. An up-close look at a vulnerable woman and the limited options available to those in need, it is sure to be greeted with great empathy by audiences.

A Far Shore

A Far Shore
Japan / 2022 / 128 min
Director: Masaaki KUDO

And speaking of vulnerable women, here’s another tale, quite a bit more vicious than Stonewalling, but equally deserving of audience empathy.

The third feature from director Masaaki Kudo, A Far Shore had its world premiere in competition at the 2022 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival earlier this year. Set in Okinawa, which viewers may be surprised to learn is the poorest prefecture in Japan, it is a portrait of ongoing cycles of poverty and abuse that many will find hard to take.

The film focuses on 17-year-old Aoi (Kotone Hanase), who works illegally at a hostess bar in order to support her abusive, layabout husband and young son. When said husband discovers her hidden savings one day, he gives her the beating of a lifetime, leaving her so scarred that the work at the bar is impossible. Aoi is resilient, but her options are very limited.

The newly created Made in Japan section features two films by emerging filmmakers.

Why Did She Let the Monkeys Loose?

Why Did She Let the Monkeys Loose?
Japan / 2022 / 98 min
Director: Izumi TAKAHASHI

Izumi Takahashi is one of Japan’s most prolific and versatile screenwriters, having written often for director Kazuya Shiraishi (The Devil’s Path, One Night), as well as working with Naomi Kawase on True Mothers and several big-name big-studio directors. He made his own directorial debut with a remarkable indie about the dissolution of a relationship due to mental illness, The Soup, One Morning (2005), and shortly afterward formed a collective with its star, Hiromasa Hirosue, called Gunjo-iro. Hirosue stars in Izumi’s new film, Why Did She Let the Monkeys Loose?, in which mental health once more comes into play.

The film concerns writer Yuko (Midori Shine, also a Gunjo-iro regular), who starts researching a story about the reasons that a high school girl has been arrested for destruction of property after releasing monkeys from the zoo. As Yuko searches for the truth, her view of the world is shaken, and the issue of media manipulation is given a thorough drubbing.

There is a Stone

There is a Stone
Japan / 2022 / 104 min
Director: Tatsunari OTA

In Tatsunari Ota’s sophomore feature, viewers are treated to an homage, of sorts, to French New Wave director Jacques Rozier’s vacation films, which defined the concept of “vacance” as “to be empty.” Here, too, the story seems rather empty — although visually rich. A woman visits a town where she encounters a man skipping stones by the riverside. She joins him and the two skip stones together until night falls. Gradually, the stones acquire greater meaning…

Yurakucho Asahi Hall

This year’s FILMeX Competition comprises 9 new films by emerging filmmakers in Asia.

Acclaimed Cambodian documentarian Rithy Panh (The Missing Picture) will preside over an international jury that also includes film historian and programmer Kiki Fung and director  Kim Hee Jung (A French Woman). The panel will award the Grand Prize (¥700,000) and the Special Jury Prize (¥300,000) on the festival’s penultimate night. There will also be an Audience Award chosen from across all sections, and the Student Jury Prize.

Stonewalling

Stonewalling
Japan / 2022 / 150 min
Directors: HUANG Ji & Ryuji OTSUKA

Chinese director Huang Ji and her husband, Japanese cinematographer-producer Ryuji Otsuka, have collaborated for the third time on the much-buzzed-about Stonewalling, which alights at FILMeX shortly after its world premiere the Venice International Film Festival and a heralded berth at the New York Film Festival. Their collaboration also extends to actress Yao Honggui, star of their previous films, The Foolish Bird (2007) and Egg and Stone (2012).

Yao plays Lynn, a 20-year-old who’s training to be a flight attendant when she discovers that she’s pregnant. As she struggles to decide what to do—her callow boyfriend urges her to have an abortion—she realizes her decision may actually assist her parents, the owners of a local clinic who have become ensnared in a medical malpractice suit. An up-close look at a vulnerable woman and the limited options available to those in need, it is sure to be greeted with great empathy by audiences.

A Far Shore

A Far Shore
Japan / 2022 / 128 min
Director: Masaaki KUDO

And speaking of vulnerable women, here’s another tale, quite a bit more vicious than Stonewalling, but equally deserving of audience empathy.

The third feature from director Masaaki Kudo, A Far Shore had its world premiere in competition at the 2022 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival earlier this year. Set in Okinawa, which viewers may be surprised to learn is the poorest prefecture in Japan, it is a portrait of ongoing cycles of poverty and abuse that many will find hard to take.

The film focuses on 17-year-old Aoi (Kotone Hanase), who works illegally at a hostess bar in order to support her abusive, layabout husband and young son. When said husband discovers her hidden savings one day, he gives her the beating of a lifetime, leaving her so scarred that the work at the bar is impossible. Aoi is resilient, but her options are very limited.

The newly created Made in Japan section features two films by emerging filmmakers.

Why Did She Let the Monkeys Loose?

Why Did She Let the Monkeys Loose?
Japan / 2022 / 98 min
Director: Izumi TAKAHASHI

Izumi Takahashi is one of Japan’s most prolific and versatile screenwriters, having written often for director Kazuya Shiraishi (The Devil’s Path, One Night), as well as working with Naomi Kawase on True Mothers and several big-name big-studio directors. He made his own directorial debut with a remarkable indie about the dissolution of a relationship due to mental illness, The Soup, One Morning (2005), and shortly afterward formed a collective with its star, Hiromasa Hirosue, called Gunjo-iro. Hirosue stars in Izumi’s new film, Why Did She Let the Monkeys Loose?, in which mental health once more comes into play.

The film concerns writer Yuko (Midori Shine, also a Gunjo-iro regular), who starts researching a story about the reasons that a high school girl has been arrested for destruction of property after releasing monkeys from the zoo. As Yuko searches for the truth, her view of the world is shaken, and the issue of media manipulation is given a thorough drubbing.

There is a Stone

There is a Stone
Japan / 2022 / 104 min
Director: Tatsunari OTA

In Tatsunari Ota’s sophomore feature, viewers are treated to an homage, of sorts, to French New Wave director Jacques Rozier’s vacation films, which defined the concept of “vacance” as “to be empty.” Here, too, the story seems rather empty — although visually rich. A woman visits a town where she encounters a man skipping stones by the riverside. She joins him and the two skip stones together until night falls. Gradually, the stones acquire greater meaning…

Yurakucho Asahi Hall