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This year’s TIFF essentially confirmed what 2024 is all about in Asian cinema terms: co-productions, Chinese cinema, Asean genre films and a Japanese industry that has gotten back to the top due to its ever present stability. The program was quite interesting in general, as it combined genre with art house in an almost equal ratio, in a rather unusual move for a festival, where the selection tends to linger towars the latter. The result definitely worked, particularly in terms of diversity, with the program including from experimental titles to intense crowdpleasers and everything between. “She Taught Me Serendipity“, “Pavane for an Infant“, and “Harbor Lights” are among the highlights of a selection that includes a number of gems.

Check our full coverage in the articles below

1. Film Review: Sima’s Song (2024) by Roya Sadat © Ton Peters

“Sima’s Song” is an excellent film that manages to highlight the issues Afghanistan faces...

The last film by writer, director, and editor Tetsuichirô Tsuta, 2013’s “The Tale of Iya” didn’t get to make a big splash in the UK or US. But perhaps the association with names such as Lee Kang-sheng and Ryuichi Sakamoto will help move things along for “Black Ox,” a standout from the Tokyo International Film Festival’s fascinating and varied “Asian Futures” program, which showcases a variety of critical perspectives from across the continent.

“A certain island country is on the path to civilization.” That wry prelude is all the introduction we get before Tsuta plunges us into the story of a mountain man (Lee) whose life is framed by the assimilation of all peoples under one unified umbrella of “Japanese” identity during the latter half of the 19th century (starting around the time of the Meiji Restoration). If the festival’s opening film, the samurai epic “11 Rebels,...

Keirin is a form of motor-paced cycle racing in which track cyclists sprint for victory following a speed-controlled start behind a motorized or non-motorized pacer. It was developed in Japan around 1948 for gambling purposes and became an official event at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia. Tamano is a seaside city located in southern Okayama Prefecture, Japan. It was officially founded on August 3, 1940 and as of October 1, 2016, has an estimated population of 60,101. Tetsuichiro Tsuta brings the two concepts together, in a style that looks at least partially promotional for both, to present three rather differently styled segments in his omnibus, which marks his first feature after 2013 and “The Tale of Iya”.

Tamano Visual Poetry: Nagisa’s Bicycle is screening at Camera Japan

The first part, titled “Bicycle Racing” focuses on Oshima, a middle-aged, quite bulky bicycle racer, who is having a midlife crisis since he has to gradually leave the...

Retrospective will focus on Japanese independent cinema from the past 15 years and includes Cannes favourite Naomi Kawase.

The San Sebastian Film Festival is to programme a retrospective for its 63rd edition (Sept 18-26) titles New Japanese independent cinema 2000-2015.

Among the titles making up the retrospective from known directors are:

H Story (2001) by Nobuhiro Suwa;A Snake of June (Rokugatsu no hebi, 2002) by Shin’ya Tsukamoto;Bright Future (Akarui mirai, 2003) by Kiyoshi Kurosawa;Vibrator (2003) by Ryuichi Hiroki;Bashing (2005) by Masahiro Kobayashi;Birth/Mother (Tarachime, 2006) by Naomi Kawase;Love Exposure (Ai no mukidashi, 2008) by Shion Sono.

The works of several new talents to have made their debut since 2000 include:

Hole in the Sky (Sora no ana, 2001) by Kazuyoshi Kumakiri,Border Line (2002) by Sang-il Lee,No One’s Ark (Baka no hakobune, 2003) by Nobuhiro Yamashita, The Soup, One Morning (Aru asa, soup wa, 2005) by Izumi Takahashi,Fourteen (Ju-yon-sai, 2007) by Hiromasa Hirosue,Sex Is Not Laughing Matter (Hito no sekkuso...

A still from Phoring

Bengali-language film Phoring, directed by Indranil Roychowdhury, has been nominated for the Asian New Talent award at the Shanghai International Film Festival (June 14-22).

The Asian New Talent award is the second competition program of the festival, aiming at discovering and promoting young directors. From the 10 competition films, the winners of Best Film and Best Director are awarded approximately Usd 48,000.

Phoring, the story of an adolescent boy growing up in a back-of-beyond township in North Bengal, released in India in September last year.

The other nominations in the Asian New Talent award category are 10 Minutes by Yong-seung Lee (Korea), Angels Come Together by Hamid Mohammad (Iran), The Blue Bone by Cui Jian (China), Concrete Clouds by Lee Chatametikool (Thailand), Homeland by Nao Kubota (Japan), I’m Not Angry! by Reza Dormishian (Iran), No Smoking by Dong Xinwen and Wu Gang (China) and The Tale Of Iya...

Mostofa S. Farooki’s Ant Story and John Carney’s Begin Again are among the films that will compete for the Golden Goblet Award at this year’s Shanghai International Film Festival (Siff).

Begin Again was recently acquired for Chinese distribution by Ivanhoe Pictures and Beijing Galloping Horse, while Ant Story premiered at last year’s Dubai International Film Festival.

Organisers said the full Golden Goblet line-up has yet to be announced but will also include Volker Schlöndorff’s Diplomatie; Thai filmmaker Tom Waller’s The Last Executioner; Greek filmmaker Pantelis Voulgaris’ Mikra Anglia; Maiko wa Lady, from Japan’s Masayuki Suo; Michael Spierig and Peter Spierig’s Predestination (Australia); Jeanne Herry’s She Adores Him (France); Mehdi Rahmani’s Snow (Iran); Zhang Meng’s The Uncle Victory (China); and Marko Nabersnik’s The Woods Are Still Green (Germany).

As previously announced, Gong Li will serve as president of the Golden Goblet jury, which also includes...

The Tale of Iya

Written by Tetsuichirô Tsuta, Masaya Kawamura and Masayuki Ueda

Directed by Tetsuichirô Tsuta

Japan, 2013

Shot with remarkable assurance on 35mm film, Tetsuichirô Tsuta’s second feature The Tale of Iya instantly has the feel of a classic. It opens with a scene of serene and organic beauty, starting with a flurry of snow falling from the half-lit sky. A man in traditional rural dress walks out of a humble wooden shrine and stumbles through the drifts, simultaneously battling with and assimilating the hostile conditions. He comes across a car accident; the driver is flung through the windscreen and both passengers are obviously dead. Moving on, he notices a flash of pink on the frozen river, a baby girl in a snowsuit crawling on the ice. He watches her for a moment, then walks over and picks her up, as the snow continues to fall around them.

Nymphomaniac: One Night Stand | Keswick film festival | Borderlines film festival | Pan-Asia film festival

Nymphomaniac: One Night Stand, Nationwide

That Lars von Trier, he's a naughty one, eh? And befitting its subject matter, his latest grandiose provocation has been preceded by a prolonged foreplay-session of teaser trailers and titillating rumours. Now, for one night only, you can watch both halves of the movie back to back before it goes on release in two halves later this month. Despite being four hours long and sexually explicit, it's far from the sado-masochistic experience it sounds, with digressions into baroque music, fly fishing and dessert forks, and a steady procession of familiar faces including Uma Thurman, Christian Slater, Jamie Bell and Willem Dafoe. Afterwards, you'll be rewarded with a satellite Q&A, live from the Curzon Chelsea, in which three of the film's stars – Von Trier veteran Stellan Skarsgård and Britons Stacy Martin...