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Based on Minato Akegawa’s short story collection “Hana Manma”, which won the 133rd Naoki Prize in 2005, the Japanese title of “Petals and Memories” refers to a small flower lunch box given to someone special.

Petals and Memories is screening at Toronto Japanese Film Festival

Having lost their parents at a young age, siblings Toshiki and Fumiko Kato have lived together ever since in the downtown area of Osaka. Toshiki, the older brother, has continued to protect his younger sister Fumiko, holding close the promise he made to their late father to “protect his sister no matter what.” He has sacrificed much of his own life in doing so. Fumiko, however, is about to marry Taro, a nerdy scientist with an uncanny ability to communicate with crows. Toshiki feels that a long-standing burden is finally being lifted. But when a secret his sister has kept from him resurfaces, concerning the...

In a country such as Japan, with the largest percentage of older adults in the world, dealing with the particular age seems like a must, and local cinema has done so repeatedly, usually focusing on the problems these people face. Tetsu Maeda, however, opts for a different approach, which, although mentions the problem, it mostly focuses on the perks. The fact that the story is based on the life of Aiko Sato, an author who is still publishing although she is 100 years old, and who is played by 90-year-old actress Mitsuko Kusabue, definitely helps.

90 Years Old – So What? is screening at Nippon Connection

Aiko Sato is a 90 year-old award-winning writer, who retired from her writing job. Since her retirement, she has lived her life listlessly with her daughter and granddaughter. Middle-aged editor Tachibana seems unable to adapt to the era of political correctness, with his colleagues, and particularly a former...

On Tuesday, May 27, 2025, the Nippon Connection Film Festival in Frankfurt am Main will open its doors for the 25th time! For six days, the world’s largest festival for Japanese cinema will present a varied program with over 100 current short and feature-length films as well as around 70 cultural events, including concerts, workshops, lectures, and exhibitions. With over 10,000 tickets already sold in advance and numerous events sold out, as well as around 200 filmmakers and artists attending, another record-breaking festival appears to be in store. The full program and tickets are available at NipponConnection.com.

“What began as a student project in 2000 has developed into an internationally recognized meeting place for Japanese film and culture over the last 25 years. We are celebrating this anniversary with a program that impressively reflects the diversity, creativity and relevance of Japanese cinema.” – Marion Klomfass (Festival Director)

The festival will open on May 27 at 7:00 p.m.

The program of the 25th Nippon Connection Film Festival is complete! From May 27 to June 1, the world’s largest platform for Japanese film will be celebrating its 25th anniversary in Frankfurt am Main, offering six days of immersion in Japan’s film and cultural scene. Around 100 short and feature-length films will be screened at ten venues, including 67 premieres of current Japanese films. In addition, over 60 filmmakers and artists from Japan will travel to Frankfurt am Main to present their works to the public. Around 70 cultural events and a free Japanese market with various food and craft stalls round off the program. Detailed information and tickets for all films and events are available at NipponConnection.com.

This year’s film selection presents a diverse cross-section of current Japanese cinema. The Nippon Connection Film Festival will open on May 27 at 7:00 p.m. at the Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm with Tetsu Maeda’s comedy 90 Years Old – So What?...

The annual New York Asian Film Festival is about to kick off this summer.

Presented by the New York Asian Film Foundation and Film at Lincoln Center, the 23rd edition of the festival will take place from July 12 through 22 at Film at Lincoln Center, with additional screenings from July 22 through 28 at the Sva Theatre and July 13–15, 18–21, and 23–25 at Look Cinemas W57, plus a special collaborative presentation of films at the Korean Cultural Center New York.

This year’s lineup marks the largest list of premieres, with 20 films debuting including the North American premiere of “Fly Me to the Moon” and “Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In,” which debuted at Cannes.

The opening night selection is the world premiere of Park Beom-su’s “Victory,” a cheerleading epic that’s billed as “Bring It On” meets “Parasite.” Lee Hye-ri (of 3rd-gen K-pop band Girl’s Day) will be in attendance with co-star Park Se-wan and director Park.

Based on the novel “Lost Care” by Aki Hamamaka, which won the 16th Japan Mystery Literature Award for Best Newcomer. “Do Unto Others” is a crime movie with a very interesting premise, which eventually becomes a pondering on the concept of euthanasia.

Do Unto Others is screening at Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme

Munenori Shiba works for a caretaking company and seems to be the most diligent employee, always going out of his way to help the elderly, and never actually complaining, in an overall attitude that has earned him respect from his colleagues, and even something more from a newcomer in the company, Yuki. The latter is also the one who discovers one day two dead bodies in a house the company is working at, one being the head of the company, Haru and the other the elderly man living there. Prosecutor Hidemi Otomo starts investigating the case with the help of her assistant,...

The story begins with an unexpected encounter on a rainy day…

Chisa Sakaki, a 26-year-old, has closed her heart due to a past event and spends her days in an indifferent manner. She has promised herself that she will never fall in love, but something changes in her that starts the clock ticking again… (Source: Japanese Film Database)

Directed by Tetsu Maeda (Do Unto Others) based on the manga by Rettou Tajima (published from August 2018 to July 2020) and screenplay adaptation by Satomi Oshima, this movie stars Suzu Hirose, Riku Onishi and Kengo Kora. It was released in Japan on June 9, 2023.

By the time the samurai film genre, along with Japanese cinema itself, announced its presence on the global stage at the dawn of the 1950s with Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, thousands of tales featuring the legendary warriors had already been filmed. Their popularity has experienced peaks and troughs in the 70 years since, but samurai have never come close to disappearing from the screen.

Now a new crop of productions explore themes both novel and traditional and are taking fresh perspectives and interpretations on the genre. Meanwhile, 21st-century technology, retellings of classic stories and protagonists with modern sensibilities promise to find new audiences for the world of topknot-wearing, sword-wielding warriors.

Part of the appeal of the samurai film is the thematic diversity and vast historical era that the genre spans. Rashomon was unusual not just for its seminal narrative structure but also for its setting in the 11th century, the early days of the samurai.

Early one morning, the bodies of an elderly man and the manager of a home-visit nursing center are found at the man’s home. A police investigation finds the prime suspect to be Munenori Shiba (Kenichi Matsuyama), a caregiver who works for the center, and is treasured by the families of his clients because of his dedication to their wellbeing. Prosecutor Hidemi Otomo (Masami Nagasawa) notices that the death rate for the center’s nursing care recipients is abnormally high, and discovers that over 40 of them have passed away at their homes since Shiba began working there. To uncover the truth, Otomo subjects Shiba to intense questioning. Eventually, he insists that he was not committing murders; on the contrary, he was actually “saving” people. This confession shakes Otomo to the core of her being.

Why did Shiba take the lives of so many elderly people, and what was the true...

Based on Inio Asano’s manga, the film stars Takumi Saito from ’Shin Ultraman’.

Japan’s Nikkatsu is launching sales on actor-director Naoto Takenaka’s Downfall, an upcoming live-action feature based on Inio Asano’s manga of the same name, at content market Tiffcom.

The adaptation of the manga, also known as Reiraku, will be a dark drama starring Takumi Saitoh of Shin Ultraman as a formerly successful manga artist. He will be joined in the cast by Shuri (Wandering), who plays a prostitute he becomes interested in, and Megumi, who plays his wife.

The story follows the artist as...

Marks the latest titles from Daishi Matsunaga and Tetsu Maeda.

Japan’s Nikkatsu is set to launch sales on director Daishi Matsunaga’s gay romance drama Egoist and Tetsu Maeda’s suspense film Do Unto Others at the Asian Contents & Film Market (Acfm).

Set to play in competition at the upcoming Tokyo International Film Festival, Egoist is from the director of 2015 drama Pieta In The Toilet and documentary Pyuupiru 2001-2008.

Starring Ryohei Suzuki and Hio Miyazawa, it follows a fashion magazine editor who starts working with a young personal trainer, who has dopped out of school to support his ailing mother.

In tearjerker “And So The Baton Is Passed”, an adaptation of the eponymous hit novel by Meiko Seo, director Tetsu Maeda follows the stories of two girls and their stepparents. Yuko (bubbly and very likable Mei Nagano) is a girl who smiles regardless of what the world throws at her. Her doting stepfather Morimiya (Kei Tanaka in a performance that manages to make every scene feel like a J-drama) is an easy-going man who raises the girl after her mother disappeared one day. Miitan (Kurumi Inagaki) is a girl who cries easily, who is told by her new stepmother Rika (Satomi Ishihara in an equally exuberant and ominous performance) to smile whatever happens. One day, the girl’s chocolate-obsessed father Mito (Nao Omori) tells Miitan and Rika that he is moving to Brazil to make the best chocolate in the world. He leaves his daughter and wife to fend for themselves.

The Japan Foundation Asia Center and Tokyo International Film Festival have uploaded the first of their omnibus film series, “Asian Three-Fold Mirror 2016: Reflections.” This film is in and of itself a compilation of three shorts; industry veterans Brillante Ma Mendoza, Isao Yukisada, and Sotho Kulikar illustrate three tales interrelating Japan to the Philippines, Malaysia, and Cambodia. While their plotlines are disconnected, their political arguments are not. Loosely tied to the theme “Living Together in Asia,” the three films wrest tongue-in-cheek responses to the inherently uneasy power dynamics between wealthy Japan and poorer parts of Southeast Asia. The collection peels back long-standing issues of poverty, servitude, and cross-cultural romance, bringing forth the lingering traces of Japanese (neo)imperialism.

The first and last shorts sing their songs of heartbreak and betrayal the most. The first, Brillante Ma Mendoza’s “Shiniuma Dead Horse,” follows the bleary-eyed amputee Marcial (Lou Veloso), an undocumented...

As an unwritten rule of cinematic common sense states, working with children, animals and disabilities can be tricky to say the least. Nevertheless, riding a wave of change in the representation of disabilities – which recently resulted in few successful outcomes – director Tetsu Maeda builds his curiously-but-aptly-titled film “A Banana? At This Time of Night?” around the tenacious and inspiring personality of a man diagnosed in early age with MD but determined to live independently and to the full. It is indeed a real story and the film is based on the novel “Konna Yofuke ni Banana kayo” by Kazufumi Watanabe. Let’s see what director Maeda made of the aforementioned wise advise.

“A Banana? At This Time of Night?” is screening as part of The Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme

Yasuaki Shikano (Yo Oizumi) is a man with MD (muscular dystrophy) and therefore confined to a wheelchair. He was diagnosed...

Today it was announced that Kiyoshi Maekawa, Wakako Sakai and Yu Yamada will star in Tabi no Okurimono: Ashita e, a movie financed by a group of cities and companies in Fukui Prefecture.

The film is a human drama about three people facing hardships in their lives who travel to Fukui by train from Tokyo, Nagoya, and Osaka respectively.

Director Tetsu Maeda (School Days with a Pig) claims his goal for the project is to create an “adult fantasy” which will evoke feelings that people will value.

Maekawa will play the former executive director of a construction company’s design department. Fellow acting veteran Sakai will play a professional beautician on a business trip. Both actors claim the film’s story caused them to reminisce about their own lives and careers.

Yamada, who recently married actor Shun Oguri, plays a woman who is hesitant to get married.

“Tabi no Okurimono:...

Which will include Coppola's Tetro which premiers at Cannes for a total of 392 films which includes 31 world premiers and 203 narrative features. Man, Siff always has good stuff, I wish I could go. Any writers in Seattle want to provide coverage for us?

Check out some of the premiers after the break.

World Premieres

Back to the Garden, Flower Power Comes Full Circle, directed by Kevin Tomlinson (USA, 2009)

Dancing Across Borders, directed by Anne H. Bass (USA/Cambodia, 2009)

Facing Ali, directed by Pete McCormack (Canada, 2009)

The Hills Run Red, directed by Dave Parker (USA, 2009)

Icons Among Us, directed by Michael Rivoira, Lars Larson, Peter J. Vogt (USA, 2009)

I’m No Dummy, directed by Bryan W. Simon (USA, 2009)

Pop Star On Ice, directed by David Barba (USA/Canada/Russia/Japan, 2009)

The Spy and the Sparrow, directed by Garrett Bennett (USA, 2009)

talhotblond, directed by Barbara Schroeder (USA, 2008)

The Whole Truth, directed by Colleen Patrick (USA,...

[Te 2008 Tokyo International Film Festival has just drawn to a close and our thanks go to regular Twitch reader James Hadfield for the following summary of the goings on. Expect to see some reviews from the festival in coming days.]

The 21st Tokyo International FIlm Festival wrapped Sunday, with the Us$100,000 Tokyo Sakura Grand Prix going to Tulpan, Sergey Dvortsevoy’s tale of nomad life on the Kazakh steppe. No surprises there: the film had already attracted positive reviews in Europe prior to its appearance here, and remained a firm favorite throughout the week. Dvortsevoy also took home the Best Director gong, presumably in recognition of his expert marshaling of Tulpan‘s cast of children, sheep and randy donkeys.

Acting awards went to Félicité Wouassi, for her commanding performance in François Dupeyron’s With a Little Help From Myself, and Vincent Cassel for his barnstorming portrayal of real-life gangster Jacques Mesrine in Jean-François Richet’s Public Enemy No. 1 (Part 1 & 2). Jerzy Skolmowski’s return to directing after a 17-year absence didn’t go entirely unheralded, either: his bleak Four Nights with Anna won the runner-up Special Jury Prize. The Audience Award,...

Fifteen films will compete for the Tokyo Sakura Grand Prize at the 21st Tokyo International Film Festival, which announced its 2008 lineup on Thursday. 

The festival kicks off Oct. 10 and features several world and international premieres. Among the competing films are Ivy Ho's "Claustrophobia," Jennifer Phang's "Half-Life," Johan Kramer's "Sing for Darfur" and Tetsu Maeda's "School Days with a Pig."

The Special Screenings section of the festival features several American films, including Justin Chadwick's "The Other Boleyn Girl," Eric Brevig's "Journey to the Center of the Earth" and Andrew Stanton's "WALL-E."

John Woo's "Red Cliff" is scheduled to open the festival, which runs through Oct. 26.

Click here to see all the films competing for the Sakura.

Click here for more information about TIFF 2008.