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What happens if a homeless man wins the lottery? Akihiro Takahama self-written short “Mimic” gives an entertaining answer to this fateful outline peppered with ingenious dialogue and wisdom.

Mimic is screening at Skip City International D-Cinema Festival

Morimoto lives in a cardboard box, spending his time at the park with other derelicts and looking for food in trash cans. By chance, a lottery ticket grants him a financial blessing. The first thing he wants to purchase is an apartment. But, with no valid address, he is not able to finalize the deal and Morimoto is forced to join a business that sells a magazine with the ironic title “Life theme – What's your reason to live?” on the street. He gets a new suit, a nice haircut, and finds shelter in a capsule hotel. After some time, his employer sponsors him a flat but Morimoto does not want to become a...

Having studied under Yukio Ninagawa, and after producing a series of award-winning shorts, Mikiya Sanada came up with his first feature, a comedy that revolves around the concept of illegal parking, in 2019. The title of the movie, “Dream of Euglena” refers to the parking officers, who, due to the green color of their suit, are frequently referred to as the titular microorganisms.

Dream of Euglena is streaming on TodoiF

A pair of parking guards, Makoto and Shige, are dispatched from a private company and are employed by the country as public servants. The two of them, however, could not have been more different, with Makoto being as strict and relentless as possible in his issuing of tickets, while Shige always tries to help the recipients, particularly when they are beautiful girls. Expectedly, their differences lead to a clash that takes place after they pick the night shift in order to get a bit more money.

Skip City International D-Cinema Festival which started in 2004 in Kawaguchi City, Saitama Prefecture, has been held every year as a “gateway for emerging talent” centered on the International Competition and the Japanese Film Competition (features and shorts). The festival launched the careers of Kazuya Shiraishi (Lesson in Murder), Ryota Nakano (The Asadas), Shinichiro Ueda (One Cut of the Dead), Shinzo Katayama (Missing) and many other directors who are leading the Japanese film industry as top runners and whose new movies audiences are looking forward to seeing.

The 19th edition will be held both at theaters and online from Saturday, July 16th in Skip City, Kawaguchi City in Saitama, with the physical screenings for the first time in three years since 2019.

On Wednesday, June 15th, a press conference was held to announce the full line-up, with the attendance of President of the Jury for International Competition, Shinobu Terajima (Actress) and President...

Festival opens with Teppe Isobe’s ’Deadly School’.

Eight local features wiill have their world premiere at Japan’s Skip City International D-Cinema Festival, which is running as a hybrid event from July 16.

The festival opens with the world premiere of Teppe Isobe’s coming of age drama Deadly School, which is adapted from the play by Kaoru Asakusa about high school girls working hard for their school festival. Teppe Isobe has won prizes at Skip City for three of his films Who Knows about My Life (2018), F is for Future (2019) and Cornflakes (2020).

Held in Kawaguchi City, Saitama Prefecture, Skip City focuses on emerging talent,...

Photographer Minori Kijima is at a vital turning point in her life. Thirty and single, she finds solace in an affair with her editor, Kushida. In Kushida, she finds she can lose herself and live in a sort of non-identity, a place where she can easily pass judgment on those around her without worrying about how she will be perceived.

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Things begin to change when she meets journalist Shinichi. Tasked to interview Ageha, an erotic mangaka, the magazine pushes Shinichi to publish a fake article after the interview, an order that does not wield the results they are looking for. This event pushes Shinichi and Minori closer together on both a professional and moral level, as the former struggles with whether he can publish a bogus article to appease the magazine and Minori, who is also to gain from the article. From this interview, Minori begins to...