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Tiffcom, the content market affiliated with the Tokyo International Film Festival, closed its doors on Friday, but not before it unveiled the winners of the 2024 pitching contest winners.

Now in its seventh year, the MPA/Dhu/Tiffcom Masterclass Seminar and Pitching Contest is co-hosted by the Motion Picture Association, the Digital Hollywood University and Tiffcom to support young filmmakers looking to take their first steps into the international film industry.

After Friday’s first session, the master class seminar, the pitching contest saw five young filmmakers selected from a public call for entries as well as two entrants from the 2024 Kafa-tua Collaboration Film Development Workshop — a joint project development workshop for art universities in Japan and Korea, organized by Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs.

The MPA grand prize went to Shion Koreeda for AI Within, with the Japanese filmmaker receiving a study trip to the Global Film & Television Immersion...

The New York Asian Film Festival (Nyaff) has revealed the features that will compete for this year’s Uncaged Award and that Hong Kong actor Nicholas Tse will receive the Screen International Star Asia Award.

The eight-strong competition for best feature film at the festival, running July 12-28, will include the North American premiere of Thai hit How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies, directed by Pat Boonnitipat.

The film, which ranks as this year’s biggest film at the Thai box office to date, is a family drama that stars popular Thai singer Putthipong Assaratanakul (aka Billkin) as a...

Akihiro Toda is a Japanese playwright and director. In 2014 he founded his production company Chese Film, followed 2017 by the foundation of Cheese Theater, a theater group. His features as director, such as “Tangerines on Cat”, “The Name” and “We Have the Same Morning”, have been screened in many international festivals, Nippon Connection being one of them. At the same time, he also worked tirelessly for the stage, writing plays and directing them too. His new feature “Ichiko” is an adaptation of his own play of the same title and blends psychological drama and mystery.

In our interview with Akihiro Toda, he talks about the genesis of the story and its characters, its unique narrative structure and the collaboration with actors Hana Sugisaki and Yuki Morinaga.

“Ichiko” deals with the question whether you can truly know a person. Generally speaking, do you think we can truly know a person?

No. I think that is impossible.

A good mystery thriller contains suspense and an interesting premise, but above all the investigation into the riddle at its core must be both enjoyable and gripping to follow. However, it seems obvious many stories of the genre neglect this integral part, resulting in a somewhat flat and often disappointing narrative. When done right, though, the feature or novel may provide an inventive and quite fascinating portrayal of humanity, its good and also its dark aspects. Director Akihiro Toda has had some experiences in the mystery genre with his feature “The Name” and in “Ichiko” he goes even further, experimenting with different time layers to create the portrayal of the central character, her troubled past and her problems in keeping relationships.

Ichiko is screening at Nippon Connection

Based on Toda's play, the story begins in 2015 with Ichiko (Hana Sugisaki) being proposed to by her boyfriend Yoshinori (Ryuya Wakaba). The two could not be happier,...

The program of the 24th Japanese Film Festival Nippon Connection is complete! From May 28 to June 2, the festival offers the opportunity to delve into Japan's film and cultural scene. The festival presents around 100 short and feature-length films at eight venues, including numerous premieres. Over 60 filmmakers and artists will travel from Japan to Frankfurt am Main, Germany, to present their works to the audience. At the freely accessible grounds of the festival centers Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm and Produktionshaus Naxos, visitors can enjoy the festival atmosphere with a large Japanese market featuring numerous food and craft stands. Detailed information and tickets for all films and events are available at NipponConnection.com.

This year's film selection promises exciting discoveries. Fans of genre films can enjoy Shinji Araki's acclaimed time-loop thriller Penalty Loop, Kaz I Kiriya's apocalyptic drama From The End Of The World, and Shimako Sato's action-packed fantasy adventure The Yin Yang Master Zero.

The Far East Film Festival (Feff) in Italy’s Udine has unveiled the full line-up for its 26th edition, which will honour Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou with an honorary award and world premiere restored versions of his Raise The Red Lantern and To Live.

Running April 24 to May 2, the festival will open with a double bill: Chinese box office hit Yolo and South Korean action-comedy Citizen Of A Kind.

Yolo dominated this year’s Lunar New Year releases, grossing $484m in China, and is directed by Jia Ling, who stars as an unemployed woman in her 30s whose life is...

The New Currents and Jiseok selections include features from Japan, China, South Korea and Bangladesh among others.

The 28th Busan International Film Festival has revealed the titles selected for its New Currents and Jiseok strands, the festival’s competitive sections for Asian films.

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New Currents is for films by directors making their first or second works of fiction and comprises 10 titles from Japan, China, South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, India and Bangladesh.

They include September 1923, which marks the fiction feature debut of Japanese director Tatsuya Mori and centres on the Great Kantō earthquake of 1923. Mori is known as a documentary filmmaker,...

A Girl Missing director Kôji Fukada seated in front of posters for James Crump’s Antonio Lopez 1970: Sex Fashion & Disco and Atsuko Hirayanagi’s Oh Lucy! at Film Movement Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Kôji Fukada’s A Girl Missing (Yokogao), shot by Ken'ichi Negishi (Akihiro Toda’s Neko Ni Mikan), stars Mariko Tsutsui with Mikako Ichikawa, Miyu Ogawa, Mitsuru Fukikoshi, Sôsuke Ikematsu, and Ren Sudo. Fukada’s Harmonium won the Cannes Un Certain Regard Jury Prize in 2016 and he is also the director of The Man From The Sea and Au Revoir L’Été. At Film Movement in New York I spoke with Kôji about his love of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, how some say his heroine resembles Golden Globe winner Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker in Todd Phillips’ movie, unravelling societal conventions, and what he did to create the sound design in post-production.

Motoko (Mikako Ichikawa) with Ichiko (Mariko...

Akihiro Toda’s “The Name” is quite a strange film, as it combines two favorite Japanese genres, the school drama and the quirky comedy in a way that allows the two not to intermingle, almost at all.

The Name is screening at Nippon Connection

Masao is a 45-year-old and an utter failure. He has failed in his business and gone completely penniless, in his wedding, being divorced and with no current romantic relationships whatsoever, and his general social life, having almost no friends. Furthermore, he lies constantly to everyone he knows, including his boss in the factory he works and his colleagues, occasionally even using fake names. One day, a mysterious high school girl named Emiko, who seems to know all about his secrets and lies, enters his life in the most unexpected fashion. The girl persists on hanging out with him, and Masao eventually starts warming up to her,...