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Kang Bo’s Kingdom Of The Insomniacs has picked up the top Busan Award at the Asian Project Market (Apm) in South Korea.

The 27th edition of the Apm wrapped on Tuesday evening (October 8) after four days, taking place at the Asian Contents & Film Market (Acfm) during the Busan International Film Festival (Biff). A total of 30 feature film projects from across Asia met with potential finance, co-production partners and international distributors.

Scoll down for full list of winners

Chinese fantasy drama Kingdom Of The Insomniacs marks Kang Bo’s second narrative feature and follows mushroom farmers plagued with insomnia and an aging disease.

Kingdom Of The Insomniacs, directed by China’s Kang Bo, won the Busan Award at the close of this year’s Asian Project Market (Apm) at Busan International Film Festival.

Produced by Xie Meng, the project follows a group of mushroom farmers plagued with insomnia and an aging disease. After his father dies, a young member of the community tries to extricate himself from this wicked kingdom. Kang Bo is a documentary filmmaker whose debut narrative feature Family At Large, starring Hu Ge, is currently in post-production.

Hum, from US-Philippines filmmaker Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan, was the only project to win multiple prizes – picking up the Artekino International Award and the Sorfond Award. Produced by Hannah Schierbeek and Alemberg Ang, the project tells the story of a rodeo couple who are haunted when mysterious ecological changes threaten to destroy the stadium they live in.

This year’s Apm introduced two...

After three days of one-on-one meetings within the Asian Project Market, winners were announced at a ceremony in Busan, South Korea, on Tuesday evening.

The project market is held as part of the Asian Contents & Film Market, which is closely aligned with the Busan International Film Festival. Some 30 film projects were pitched by their directors and producers, seeking finance, co-production partners and international distribution. Market organizers reported that they facilitated 706 meetings.

“Kingdom of the Insomniacs” was the winner of the prestigious Busan Award. “Hum” from The Philippines was the only project to win multiple prizes.

Singapore-based producer Tan Si En, who previously produced Venice award winner “Don’t Cry Butterfly,” Sundance award winner “Pop Aye” and Anthony Chen’s “Wet Season,” notably picked up prizes for both her Apm entries, “Levitating” and “Crocodile Rock.”

“Kingdom of the Insomniacs” is a drama thriller set in an old forest farm, “where mushroom farmers...

Renowned Bhutanese filmmaker Khyentse Norbu is set to push his latest film Pig At The Crossing online for a second time through self-organized virtual screenings after being rejected by more than 30 film festivals.

Norbu, whose previous films have been selected for Toronto, Venice, Locarno and Busan, shot his latest feature entirely in Bhutan and deals with the complexity of what happens when we die. The protagonist is a young YouTube creator who dies in an accident and must choose between letting go of his attachment to his former self or being trapped in a dream-like in-between state.

The film had...

Busan International Film Festival (Biff) has revealed 30 titles chosen for the 2024 Asian Project Market (Apm), including upcoming features by award-winners Kirsten Tan, Iqbal H. Chowdhury, Woo Ming Jin and Daishi Matsunaga.

The investment and co-production market, which runs as part of Biff’s Asian Contents and Film Market (Acfm), is set to take place from October 5-8 in Busan, South Korea.

Scroll down for full list of titles

This year’s Apm selection features an expanded variety of genres, including crime thrillers, horror, queer cinema, and animated films, alongside the more traditional selections of drama, comedy and romance. Organisers said...

Busan International Film Festival has revealed the 30 projects that have been selected for this year’s Asian Project Market (Apm), including several from Asian filmmakers who have previously had films selected for the Korean festival.

The line-up includes Dhakar Nagin, from Bangladeshi filmmaker Iqbal H. Chowdhury, who won Busan’s New Currents Award last year with The Wrestler. Also returning is Indonesia’s Wregas Bhanuteja with Levitating, after his film Photocopier screened in New Currents in 2021.

Other returnees include Japan’s Sotoyama Bunji with Life Redo List after Soiree screened at the festival in 2020, along with Asian Film Academy alumni Aigerim Satybaldy, a Khazakh filmmaker who is producing Leg from Uzbek filmmaker Shokir Kholikov; Sri Lanka’s Ilagno Ram with Rabbit Hole; and Myanmar’s Lin Htet Aung with Making A Sea.

Established filmmakers in the selection include Hong Kong documentary filmmaker Chan Tze-woon with Nothing Happened, Filipino indie filmmaker Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan,...

The Hong Kong-Asian Film Collaboration Funding Scheme has selected two Hong Kong-Japan co-productions by seasoned producers Stanley Kwan and Shunsuke Koga as its first winning projects.

All The Things We Have Done Wrong That Led Us To This, produced by Kwan, and 38.83, produced by Koga, will each receive a grant of up to $1.1m (Hk$9m) to support their production. The announcement was made at the Hong Kong Night during the Cannes Film Festival on May 16.

All The Things… is to be directed by Japan’s Daishi Matsunaga, whose LGBTQ+ romance drama Egoist played in competition at Tokyo in 2022 and...

Strand Releasing has acquired North American rights from sales company Films Boutique to tender coming-of-age drama “Young Hearts” by Belgian newcomer Anthony Schatteman, which recently launched from the Berlin Film Festival.

Schatteman’s standout debut follows a 13-year-old boy named Elias, who feels drawn to his new neighbor, Alexander, and must overcome his conflicted feelings about being attracted to another boy. “Young Hearts” won a special mention in the Generation Kplus section of the Berlinale in February and has now been selected by Cannes Écran Junior, the Cannes Film Festival sidebar section showcasing films for all audiences that have a specific cultural and educational value for younger viewers.

The film will soon have its North American premiere at the Seattle International Film Festival in May.

“Casting directors take note: Lou Goossens [who plays Elias] in this first feature film role is an actor to watch out for,” wrote Variety critic Catherine Bray in her “Young Hearts” review,...

Nathan Zellner and David Zellner’s Sasquatch Sunset is stomping into circa 850 theaters this weekend after debuting in 9 with a solid opening for a film many could find weird. A tribe of Sasquatch, possibly the last of their kind, live and love in the woods of northern California, where it was shot.

“We are taking Bigfoot to America. We have high hopes that the broader market will embrace the movie,” says Kyle Davies of distributor Bleecker Street, calling it “a very different” kind of movie and “a bit of an unknown.”

“It’s a wildcard.”

Marketing was mainly through social activations. “I wouldn’t call it traditional marketing. It doesn’t really fit in that box,” Davies adds. The Sasquatch standees in theaters are fun. And Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar is displaying a baby Sasquatch sitting in a glass case with umbilical cord and placenta.

This is “a polarizing film.

Matsunaga Daishi’s Egoist is a love duet full of intimate gestures. “I hated my hometown so much, I fled it, at 18, for Tokyo,” confesses Kosuke (Suzuki Ryohei), in voiceover. “For me, clothes are armor.” Though the gay fashion magazine editor, who lost his mother at age 14, seems much more at home in the more socially liberal Tokyo, he still hides behind his sharp style and his money. That is, until he meets Ryuta (Miyazawa Hio), a fitness trainer to whom he feels an immediate bond. And through these two young men from decidedly different backgrounds, Matsunaga’s film considers how class, capitalism, and core wounds collide, infect, and also inspire the heart’s most tender desires.

It isn’t long after Kosuke starts training with Ryuta that the two become romantically linked. Theirs is a carnal connection that deepens and complicates as they learn more about each other. In some ways,...

The 17th annual Asian Film Awards (Afa) announced the winners and special award recipients at a ceremony held at the West Kowloon Cultural District's Xiqu Centre in Hong Kong on March 10, 2024. Sixteen competitive prizes and six honorary prizes were given out.

A total of thirty-five films from 24 countries and regions were nominated for 16 prizes at the 17th Afa. From Japan, Ryusuke Hamaguchi 's Evil Does Not Exist received the Best Film Award and Best Original Music (Eiko Ishibashi), marking the second year in a row that Hamaguchi and Ishibashi have received Afa Awards; and Hirokazu Kore-eda won the Best Director Award with Monster, following last year's wins with his Korean film Broker. Koji Yakusho won the Best Actor Award for Perfect Days, his second such Afa Award following his win at the 13th Afa in 2019 for The Blood of Wolves. Perfect Days won the Best Director Award at the Japan...

Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist was named best film at the Asian Film Awards in Hong Kong on Sunday evening (March 10).

The Japanese drama, which premiered in competition at Venice where it won five awards including the grand jury prize, also picked up best original music for composer Eiko Ishibashi.

Scroll down for full list of winners

While Hamaguchi was not at the ceremony, held in the Grand Theatre of the Xiqu Centre in Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District, the top prize was accepted in-person by Ishibashi, cinematographer Yoshio Kitagawa and co-editor Azusa Yamzaki – presented by...

The Skip City International D-Cinema Festival 2024 will celebrate its 21st edition from July 13th (Sat) to 21st (Sun), 2024 for 9 days at Skip City, which is an integrated institution for digital cinema production.

(See: https://www.skipcity-dcf.jp/en/)

Submission period: January 31st, 2024 (Wed) – March 1st, 2024 (Fri)

Skip City International D-Cinema Festival remains committed to discovering and nurturing new talent, with the aim of helping these filmmakers seize new business opportunities that have arisen in the changing landscape of the film industry. Now calling for works (60 min. or longer) that have been shot digitally and must be the director's 1st, 2nd, or 3rd feature film from all over the world for the International Competition section.

Call for entries for the International Competition!!

Entry Deadline: Must be received by March 1st, 2024 (Fri)

Submit via FilmFreeway

https://filmfreeway.com/Skipcityinternationald-CinemaFESTIVAL (Online registration / Free)

All nominated films in competition categories are eligible for the Festival Organizers awards.

The 66th edition of the Blue Ribbon Awards, presented by the Association of Tokyo Film Journalists, has announced its winners on January 24, 2024. The nominees are selected from movies released in 2023. The trifecta wins for “Godzilla Minus One” come as no surprise, sweeping the Best Film, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress categories. Yuya Ishii picks up the Best Director award for both his movies “The Moon” and “Masked Hearts”.

Best Film

Masked Hearts

Ichiko

Egoist

Monster

The Dry Spell

Godzilla Minus One

Mom, Is That You?!

(Ab)normal Desire

The Moon

One Last Bloom

Perfect Days

Bad Lands

September 1923

Do Unto Others

As Long as We Both Shall Live

Best Director

Yuya Ishii – The Moon, Masked Hearts

Hirokazu Koreeda – Monster

Daishi Matsunaga – Egoist

Takashi Yamazaki – Godzilla Minus One

Yoji Yamada – Mom, Is That You?!

Best Actor

Goro Inagaki – (Ab)normal Desire

Ryunosuke Kamiki – Godzilla Minus One, We're Broke, My Lord!

The love of self and the love of others are deeply intertwined, according to everyone from ancient philosophers to “Drag Race” host Ru Paul. We must be anchored in a solid space of self-love in order to let someone else into our lives. On its surface, this is the key tenet of Daishi Matsunaga’s “Egoist” (ergo its title). But that sentiment serves instead to highlight how this maudlin Japanese drama about a gay man in his 30s coping with love and loss, rarely moves beyond the readymade platitudes that litter its well-meaning narrative.

Based on the late Makoto Takayama’s autobiographical novel of the same name, “Egoist” follows Saitô Kôsuke (Ryohei Suzuki), a magazine editor whose picture-perfect life includes an immaculately designed condo, a quick-paced job surrounded by fashion and photography, a closet full of beautiful designer clothes and a coterie of gay male friends with whom he handily gets along.

The Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme, the U.K.’s largest festival of Japanese cinema, will take to the road in February and March. Its 2024 selection is the event’s largest ever with much of it attuned to the theme of memories, times and reflections.

“The JFTFP24 delves into Japanese cinema to explore how memories are employed in the cinematic voices of Japanese filmmakers, from films where memories are a focal point to works where they play a subliminal role in driving or affecting people’s minds and behavior,” said organizers.

The festival will run Feb. 2 – Mar. 31 and take in 30 U.K. cities including Edinburgh, Manchester, Oxford, Orkney, Exeter and York.

Program highlights include: the U.K. premiere of “Shadow of Fire,” directed by festival favorite Shinya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo: The Iron Man); a new entry in Nikkatsu’s Roman Porno genre, “Hand”; visually stunning anime “Lonely Castle in the Mirror,...

Leaff 2023 brings a diverse programme from East and Southeast Asia, including international and UK premieres. This year, our programme will be showcased through these strands: Retrospective: Director Chung Ji-Young, Leaff’s Official Selection, Competition, Stories of Women, Halloween Horror Special, Cherish the World, Lgbtqia+ and Classics Restored. The festival will open and close at Odeon Luxe Leicester Square. Other screenings and Q&As will take place at Odeon Luxe West End and the Cinema at Selfridges.

For more information about tickets, please visit: https://www.leaff.org.uk/2023tickets

Here is the full programme:

Opening Gala

The Boys + Q&a with the Director | Dir. Chung Ji-Young | Korea | 2023 | 124 mins

Closing Gala

Concrete Utopia + Q&a with Director, Actor Park Bo-young | Dir. Um Tae-hwa | Korea | 2023 | 130 mins

Leaff Official Selection

The Breaking Ice | Dir. Anthony Chen | Singapore | 2022 | 97 mins

Dan Dan | Dir. Song Chuan | China | 2022 | 103 mins

Hidden Blade | Dir. Cheng Er | Hong Kong | 2022 | 128 mins

In Broad Daylight | Dir.

Directors include Huang Hsin-yao, Tom Lin Shu-yu, Lam Sum, Ng Ka-leung and Daishi Matsunaga.

Taiwan’s Golden Horse Film Project Promotion (Fpp) has revealed a diverse selection of 46 films for its 2023 project market, including directors Huang Hsin-yao, Tom Lin Shu-yu and Hsu Chih-yen from Taiwan, Lam Sum and Ng Ka-leung from Hong Kong and Daishi Matsunaga from Japan

The market is scheduled to take place from November 20-22 during the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival with a the total prize pool of nearly $250,000 (Nt$8m), including a grand prize worth $32,000 (Nt$1m). All projects in the selection are eligible to...

With over 50+ films, Camera Japan Festival is proud to announce its full and diverse programme, combining films ranging from de newest and best Japanese arthouse, animation, documentaries, short films and classic cinema.

The 18th edition of the festival will be opened at Rotterdam based LantarenVenster on September 21st with a festive screening of Takahashi Masaya's European premiere of The Dry Spell. One day prior, the festival unofficially kicks off at Worm with a very special screening of Spaghetti Ramen. From 28 September – 1 October, the festival moves to Amsterdam's LAB111.

With three international and ten European premieres, the festival consists of a very special and exclusive film programme. Films such as Tsugaru Lacquer Girl, Firing the Lighter Gun and The Rest of Our Lives, will have their first screenings outside of Japan, here, at Camera Japan Festival.

As if the international premieres were not special enough, the festival is honored to welcome...

In an interview I had with Dean Fujioka, director of “Pure Japanese” back in August 2022, he mentioned: “I started working in Japan about 10 years ago and as I spoke with the stunt crews on site, I learned that there are less opportunities for them to play an active part in recent years, which simply led me to think that we should make more action movies in Japan”. It seems that his wish gradually was heard, with a number of action movies coming out from Japan during the last few years, in a trend that actually seems to pick up, as Netflix seems particularly interested in streaming this type of movies. Granted, a number of the titles are rather low-budget and some of them are mediocre in terms of quality, and a number of cast and crew (Tak Sakaguchi and Yuji Shimomura in particular) tend to te the same, but considering...

When looking for Japanese documentaries, most of those that pop up concern historical moments, such as wars, political events or significant figures that defined the country. But there are also Japanese documentaries that stand out for astoundingly portraying the inspiring lives of unknown or average people, either with realism or a touch of heart-warming sentiment in their depiction. Here are five documentaries about people who are either unknown to the Western mainstream eye or whose daily lives do not appear, at first sight, as extraordinary. All five follow their protagonists through the years or their daily life, witnessing their thoughts, growth or even dreams.

1. Pyuupiru 2001-2008

Contemporary Japanese artist Pyuupiru has been receiving widespread appreciation for her creations for a long time. Director Daishi Matsunaga, an old friend of hers, has been filming her for eight years, collecting the life experiences ever since Pyuupiru began frequenting clubs while dressed in bizarre homemade costumes.

The Japanese actor collected the Screen International Rising Star award at the New York Asian Film Festival.

Japanese actor Ryohei Suzuki has praised the “inspiring” members of SAG-AFTRA who are on strike to secure a fairer split of profits from streaming giants and better working conditions.

Accepting Screen International’s Rising Star Asia Award at the New York Asian Film Festival (Nyaff), the star of Egoist and upcoming Netflix feature City Hunter said: “It is such an inspiring time for us Asian actors when American actors are fighting so hard for their rights right now so I want to show...

Nyaff unveils first wave of features from China, Hong Kong, Japan and beyond.

The New York Asian Film Festival (Nyaff) has unveiled the first wave of features for its 22nd edition and announced that Japanese actor Ryohei Suzuki will receive the Screen International Rising Star award.

Nyaff will run from July 14-30 at the city’s Film at Lincoln Center, with a programme of more than 60 titles, and Suzuki will be presented with the award recognising emerging talent from East Asia on July 15.

Suzuki has been acting on screen for more than 15 years, with a string of roles in Japanese...

The spectre of autism can prove to be a slippery slope for filmmakers. Even if it does not necessarily end up on the territory of exploitation, it tends to be the defining characteristic for the characters with it, as we witnessed in films like “Rain Man” and “Forest Gump”. Having that in mind, making a compelling, convincing and believable romance movie with at least one character somewhere on the spectrum seems like a difficult, if not downright impossible task, and the Japanese filmmaker Rika Katsu undertook it for her debut feature “Spring in Between” that we had the chance to see at Nippon Connection.

Spring In Between is screening at Nippon Connection

Katsu opens the film with a parallel montage of a man seemingly playing with blue paint on its hands, but actually painting and a woman running to some kind of an open show, against the backdrop of music...

Academy Award® Qualifying Short Shorts Film Festival (Ssff) & Asia 2023 announced the jury members of Live Action Competition, Non-Fiction Competition and Smartphone Film Competition supported by Sony's Xperia. Best short award winners of each Live Action and Non-Fiction competition will be eligible for the nomination of the following year's Academy Award®.

Since last year, in order to take a wider view of international perspectives, the judges in the Asia International category will judge the Non-Fiction Competition, and the judges of the Japan Competition will judge the Smartphone Film Competition supported by Sony's Xperia.

Live Action Competition/International Competition Judges：

34 nominated films among 2282 submissions form 97 countries and regions

Maki Sakai (Actor) / Masato Hagiwara (Actor) / Satoko Yokohama (Film director / Screenwriter)

Live Action Competition/Asia International Competition Judges：

23 nominated films among 593 submissions from 22 countries and regions

Live Action Competition/ Non-Fiction Competition Judges：

13 nominated films among 290 submissions from 59 countries and regions

Adam Torel (Producer...

Daishi Matsunaga’s gay romance premiered at Tokyo International Film Festival last October.

Japan’s Nikkatsu has sold Daishi Matsunaga’s LGBTQ+ romance drama Egoist to the US and a trio of territories in Asia.

The film has been picked up by Stand Releasing for the US, which is planning a release this autumn, alongside South Korea (Studio Elon), Taiwan (Sky Digi) and Hong Kong (Golden Harvest).

It stars Ryohei Suzuki as a fashion magazine editor who starts working with a young personal trainer, played by Hio Miyazawa, who has dropped out of school to support his ailing mother. Having lost his own mother early,...

As the discourse in Japan regarding same-sex marriage is currently on the rise, films about the topic overall are bound to come out in more frequency. One of those films is Daishi Matsunaga's “Egoist”, based on the homonymous, autobiographical novel by Makoto Takayama, which was recently screened in Tokyo International.

“Egoist” is screening at Udine Far East Film Festival

When Kosuke was 14 years old, his mother died. He spent his adolescence in a rural village and suppressed his feelings as a gay male. As the film begins, however, we find him having turned his life completely upside down, working as a fashion magazine editor in Tokyo, looking rather smart in his designer clothes and overall handsomeness, and having a circle of friends that seem both dedicated and a constant source of fun for him. One day, after the suggestion of one of them, Kosuke starts working with Ryuta, a...

The first highlights of the 23rd Nippon Connection Film Festival are set! From June 6 to 11, 2023, Frankfurt am Main in Germany will once again become the capital of Japanese cinema. For six days, you can immerse yourself in art and cinema from Japan at eight venues. There are around 100 exciting short and feature-length films to discover – from the latest blockbusters and anime to independent and documentary films. A varied supporting program with more than 50 workshops, concerts, lectures and exhibitions as well as a wide range of culinary specialties invite you to experience Japan with all your senses. The two festival centers with cinemas, bars and Japanese market stalls are again the Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm and the Produktionshaus Naxos in Frankfurt am Main. The complete program and tickets will be available on NipponConnection.com starting May 12, 2023.

Nippon Rising Star Award Goes To Toko Miura!

The star guest of this year’s festival is Toko Miura,...

Johnnie To, Watanabe Hirobumi and Jang Sun-woo set to attend.

The Far East Film Festival (Feff), held in the Italian town of Udine, has revealed the full line-up for its landmark 25th edition, which is set to include appearances from filmmakers Johnnie To, Watanabe Hirobumi and Jang Sun-woo.

Running April 21-29, the festival will open with a double bill: He Shuming’s Ajoomma, the first co-production between Singapore and South Korea; and black comedy Bad Education by Taiwan’s Giddens Ko. It will close with Zhang Yimou’s Chinese blockbuster Full River Red.

The festival will screen 78 Asian films from 14 countries,...

Udine Far East Film Festival is back with a record line-up to celebrate its 25th edition. 78 films, 14 countries, 9 world premieres – Golden Mulberry for Lifetime Achievement to Baisho Chieko – On the red carpet also Johnnie To, Watanabe Hirobumi and Jang Sun-woo.

If there are 78 films (record number!) and they come from 14 countries, it should certainly be emphasized that the line-up includes 15 women directors and 12 newcomers. In brief, the 2023 selection aims to restore great complexity more than ever of Asia. A selection that combines the recent past with today, seamlessly, among different communities, different expectations and choices of life, languages and dialects, politics, religions, habits, inclinations, beliefs, myths and legends and, last but not least, different gender identities. A selection that tells in real time how the cinematography of East and Southeast Asia have re-emerged from the sad period of the pandemic, not all in the same way, and not all with the same results.

Adaptations of the celebrated Japanese writer Haruki Murakami’s novels and short stories into live-action films, have always generated a mixed bag of outcomes; their success – in my opinion – being often inversely proportional to their adherence to the original source material. To mention some, “Tony Takitani” by Jun Ichikawa, “Hanalei Bay” by Daishi Matsunaga”, “Burning” by Lee Chang-dong and the most recent “Drive My Car” by Ryusuke Hamaguchi. The author’s rich universe, fluctuating between magical realism, mundanity and straight-out surrealism, makes visual representation an arduous enterprise. For his ambitious animated feature film debut, “Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman”, composer, screenwriter, and animator Pierre Földes draws inspiration from several Murakami’s short stories, to create his own tale about how trauma can open the doors of perception. The film is an international coproduction that involves France, Holland, Luxemburg and Canada, and, so far, has won the Jury Distinction in the Best...

We are happy to announce that the Skip City International D-Cinema Festival 2023 will celebrate its 20th anniversary edition from July 15th (Sat) to 23th (Sun), 2023 for 9 days at Skip City, which is an integrated institution for digital cinema production

(See: https://www.skipcity-dcf.jp/en/)

Submission period: January 25th, 2023 (Wed) – March 1st, 2023 (Wed)

We remain committed to discovering and nurturing new talent, with the aim of helping these filmmakers seize new business opportunities that have arisen in the changing landscape of the film industry. Now we call for works (60 min. or longer) that have been shot digitally and must be the director’s 1st, 2nd, or 3rd feature film from all over the world for the International Competition section.

Call for entries for the International Competition!!

Entry Deadline: Must be received by March 1st, 2023 (Wed)

Submit via FilmFreeway

https://filmfreeway.com/Skipcityinternationald-CinemaFESTIVAL (Online registration / Free)

Our International Competition welcomes you!

As the discourse in Japan regarding same-sex marriage is currently on the rise, films about the topic overall are bound to come out in more frequency. One of those films is Daishi Matsunaga’s “Egoist”, based on the homonymous, autobiographical novel by Makoto Takayama, which was recently screened in Tokyo International.

When Kosuke was 14 years old, his mother died. He spent his adolescence in a rural village and suppressed his feelings as a gay male. As the film begins, however, we find him having turned his life completely upside down, working as a fashion magazine editor in Tokyo, looking rather smart in his designer clothes and overall handsomeness, and having a circle of friends that seem both dedicated and a constant source of fun for him. One day, after the suggestion of one of them, Kosuke starts working with Ryuta, a young personal trainer whose mother has raised him alone essentially.

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu also donated proceeds to a Mexican scholarship programme.

Filmmakers Koji Fukada and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu each received an honorary Kurosawa Akira Award at Tokyo International Film Festival on Saturday (October 29) and donated proceeds to supporting talent.

Japan’s Fukada is known for directing features such as Venice competition title Love Life, Cannes 2016 Un Certain Regard jury prize winner Harmonium, and Locarno 2019 competition title A Girl Missing. But he is also a well-known activist who campaigns on behalf of independent filmmakers in Japan and used his TIFF platform to draw attention to ongoing struggles in the industry.

“I...

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...

‘Fragments Of The Last Will’ opened 35th edition.

The 35th Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) has launched with its first full-scale red carpet in three years.

At the Takarazuka Theatre in the festival’s new main area of Hibiya-Yurakucho-Ginza, relocated last year from Roppongi, international competition jury president and US director Julie Taymor spoke from the red carpet: “It’s an incredible time now that – since Covid – you’re able to have many more international guests, which is so critical at a time in the world which is so divisive.”

TIFF was only able to host eight foreign guests last year,...

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.

Tokyo International Film Festival’s 35th edition will include titles from Bui Thac Chuyen, Olivia Wilde and Hiroki Ryuichi.

The 35th Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) today unveiled its line-up for its first full-scale physical edition since the pandemic started, with 15 international competition titles including its first from Vietnam - Bui Thac Chuyen’s Glorious Ashes.

Set to make its world premiere at TIFF, the film was a recipient of the Asean Co-production Fund (Acof) launched by the Film Development Council of the Philippines (Fdcp) and the Southeast Asia co-production grant (Scpg) established by the Singapore Film Commission (Sfc), as...

Iranian action drama “World War III,” which won two awards at the recent Venice festival, will feature among the main competition titles at next month’s Tokyo International Film Festival.

The festival will operate as an in-person event with foreign filmmakers, media and other guests in attendance from Oct. 24-Nov. 2, 2022.

“World War III” is joined in the competition section by the world premiere of Milcho Manchevski’s “Kaymak,” Spanish director Carlos Vermut’s “Manticore” and Roberta Torre’s “The Fabulous Ones,” Michale Boganim’s “Tel Aviv Beirut,” and Youssef Chebbi’s debut film “Ashkal.”

The 15-strong competition also includes two Japanese films Imaizumi Rikiya’s “By The Window” and Matsunaga Daishi’s “Egoist” and two Japanese co-productions, Fukunaga Takeshi’s “Mountain Woman,” and Kyrgyzstan director Aktan Arym Kubat’s “This Is What I Remember.”

Winners from the competition section will be chosen by a jury headed by Julie Taymor, along with Joao Pedro Rodrigues,...

Dean Fujioka started his career as a model in Hong Kong’s fashion scene in 2004 for both local and international designer brands. He continued to appear in Hong Kong’s leading fashion and lifestyle magazines. Simultaneously with his career in fashion, he also embarked on various advertising campaigns, appearing in TV and print commercials for both local and multinational clients in the Asia pacific region. In 2006, Fujioka started to pursue a career in acting. He moved his base from Hong Kong to Taipei and appeared in his first TV series Goku Dō High School with Bao Weimin, Bao Xiaobo, and Kingone Wang. His very first film August Story, starring Tian Yuan, Dean Fujioka, and Jan Cheung, caught public attention in film festivals all over Asia. In 2015, Fujioka starred as a private detective in his first Japanese TV series “Detective versus Detectives”.

On the occasion of “Pure Japanese” becoming available worldwide on Amazon Prime,...

The 19th edition of Skip City International D-Cinema Festival had been physically held in three years from July 16 to July 24 (and virtually from July 21 to July 27), and wrapped at the Closing Ceremony, Sunday July 24. Jury and Audience award winners were announced at the Ceremony.

Softie (France), directed by Samuel Theis, received the Grand Prize in the International Competition. Magnetic Beats, directed by Vincent Maël Cardona, won the Best Director and Utama, directed by Alejandro Loayza Grisi, received Special Jury Prize. This year’s jury members were Shinobu Terajima, President of the Jury and the Berlinale Silver Bear winning actress, Daishi Matsunaga, the director of Hanalei Bay and Pieta in the Toilet, and Nam Dong-chul, Busan International Film Festival, Program Director. In addition, Her Way (France), directed by Cécile Ducrocq, was chosen for the Audience Award.

Skip City Award, which is selected from all Japanese films both in the International Competition and the Japanese Film Competition,...

Japanese actor / singer / multi-lingual culture star Dean Fujioka, produces and stars in a brand new cult film ‘Pure Japanese’ out now globally via Amazon Prime Video. For genre fans, fed on a steady diet of Tarantino and Takeshi Miike, ‘Pure Japanese’ offers wry introspection, irreverent socio-cultural commentary and a heady dose of pulp violence thrown in for good measure.

Dean says: “When I was based abroad, I never thought that I would come back and live in Japan again. I even thought about changing my nationality, but guided by a mysterious power, my life made a fresh start in Japan. However, Japanese society wasn’t exactly welcoming. What does it mean to be a Japanese in the society today? Is it the blood? Nationality? If Japanese language is the Os to control the mind and action of those who speak, maybe our lives are just a vehicle for that Os.

A common trope in action movies, the storyline of the retired individual who wants a life of peace only to find forces against his will bringing him back into the old ways, is used pretty frequently. Heroes from Gary Cooper, Wesley Snipes, and Steven Seagal have all attempted the setup for themselves to varying degrees of success, and while not normally a true man-of-action to their degree, veteran actor Dean Fujioka offers his own take on the style in Daishi Matsunaga’s latest film “Pure Japanese” screening at Nippon Connection.

“Pure Japanese” is screening at Nippon Connection

Following an accident on set, actor Daisuke Tateishi (Dean Fujioka) decides the time is right to focus on his career as a high-quality stuntman in numerous action films in the industry. When his latest shoot takes him to a small village, he meets up with Ayumi (Aju Makita), a high-school student who’s...

The film’s production company Bridgehead is handling sales to Europe, with Toho handling the rest of the world.

Japanese filmmaker Ryota Nakano’s The Asadas has been sold to France’s Art House Films, Nk Contents in South Korea and Cai Chang International in Taiwan.

The film, inspired by the life of celebrated photographer Masashi Asada, is handled internationally by its production company Bridgehead for European territories and by its distributor Toho for the rest of the world.

Starring Kazunari Ninomiya (Letters From Iwo Jima) and Satoshi Tsumabuki (The Assassin), the film was released theatrically in Japan on October...

Despite the recent “trend” of Haruki Murakami adaptations, transferring his movies to cinema was never an easy task, particularly due to their abstract nature, the inconclusive ending, and the many questions that never are answered. Much like Lee Chang-dong, however, Daishi Matsunaga seems to have managed just that.

Sachi is the single mother of an adolescent boy named Takashi, and owner of a piano bar. One day, she receives a phone call that her son has been killed by a shark while surfing on Hanalei Bay, in Hawai, in a horrendous attack that had his foot completely bitten off. Sachi heads to Hawai to arrange for the transfer of the body, but also on a trip to find out more about her son. The story then flashes forward ten years, when Sachi, who has been visiting Hanalei Bay every year at the date her son stayed there, mostly spending her...

The second film of The Love Trilogy, Chained, premieres in the Berlinale’s Panorama section.

Alpha Violet has taken over sales on Israeli filmmaker Yaron Shani’s The Love Trilogy, the second film of which Chained premieres in Panorama tomorrow (Feb 9).

The film, revolving around an Israeli police officer who is suspended after he is falsely accused of abusing a minor, was previously handled by Celluloid Dreams. Under the deal, the Paris-based company is also handling the third film in the trilogy Reborn. The first film Stripped premiered at Venice.

“It’s generating strong interest and we’re also already...

For his transition from documentaries to fiction, writer-director Daishi Matsunaga chooses a challenging topic; one of those subjects that sit on the narrow edge between tearjerker territory and the land of unrequested philosophy. But, guess what? He manages not to plunge into one nor the other side and, on the contrary, to stay afloat and gift us with a sombre yet tender movie.

Loosely based on the prolific artist and godfather of manga Osamu Tetzuka’s last journals and reflections before dying, aged 60, of an announced death, “Pieta in the Toilet” centres on the young introverted painter Hiroshi (Yojiro Noda), who – for a lack of confidence and “joie de vivre” in general – has given up his art in exchange of a relatively easy and unchallenging job as window cleaner.

Very early in the film, Hiroshi passes out while at work and is taken to hospital, where further...

“I’ve always gone against nature.”

In a way, watching a film such as Daishi Matsunaga’s 2009 documentary on Japanese artist Pyuupiru offers not only great insight into his work, but also something which might be quite rare in these days. Much like the work of Pyuupiru, the film does not shy away from the kind of confrontation the artist’s work is after, the kind of reactions, as well as the kind of thought and emotion which went into each and every piece. Besides the artist himself, Matsunaga follows his process of becoming Pyuupiru with the help of various interviews with friends, family and frequent collaborators, while also including images and sequences of selected performances and works.

Considering Matsunaga is a close friend of Pyuupiru, the approach is quite personal as well. From the very first images of the artist starting in 2001 to a performance in 2008, Matsunaga frames his...

Three filmmakers explained how they’re using music to deliver political messages and explore their countries’ complex histories.

Three Southeast Asian filmmakers discussed how they’re using different forms of music – from Indonesia’s Krongcong genre to hip-hop – to deliver political messages and explore their countries’ complex histories, in a session on Tiff’s Crosscut Asia section on Friday.

Treb Monteras II described how he used rap to talk about the Philippines’ martial law era and the current war on drugs in his recent festival hit Respeto. “The film is really about the unending cycle of violence in the Philippines...

One of the many tall, slender, handsome guys who populate (and in some cases over-populate) Japanese TV dramas and films, Hiroki Hasegawa is also not the usual model-turned-actor. After graduating from Tokyo’s Chuo University, he joined the famed Bungei-za theater company, an incubator of acting talent for generations, and appeared in productions by renowned stage director Yukio Ninagawa.

After turning 30, he began to act on TV, and several years later, in films. Now 42, he has worked with such internationally known auteurs as Sion Sono (“Why Don’t You Play In Hell?”) and Kiyoshi Kurosawa (“Before We Vanish”), while winning a 2017 Japan Academy best actor prize for his work in the smash “Shin Godzilla.”

Hasesgawa stars in two films at this year’s Tokyo International Film Festival: Junji Sakamoto’s dark drama “Another World,” which screens in competition, and Daishi Matsunaga’s “Hekishu,” the Myanmar-set segment of the three-part omnibus “Asian Three-Fold Mirror 2018: Journey.