News

A portrait of the brilliantly gifted and deeply troubled Japanese photographer Masahisa Fukase, “Ravens” is an arresting and engrossing slice of artistic life on the edge from “England Is Mine” director Mark Gill. A mix of dark fantasy and potent drama set largely in the ’60s and ’70s, Gill has fashioned his view of the turning points in Fukase’s life and career as a love triangle between the photographer; his wife and collaborator Yoko Wanibe; and Fukase’s inner demons and artistic desires, which come to startling life in the form of a giant talking raven. Starring Emmy-nominated “Shogun” actor Tadanobu Asano as the artist whose work continues to be discovered and celebrated long after his death in 2012, “Ravens” should appeal to adventurous viewers whether or not they’re familiar with Fukase.

Taking its title from a 10-year black-and-white project published to wide acclaim in 1986, “Ravens” opens with Fukase’s 1982 statement,...

Considering that Japan is the most aging country in the world, it is by no surprise that films about the elderly have seen a significant increase lately. Daihachi Yoshida tries his hand also in the topic, by adapting Yasutaka Tsutsui‘s homonymous novel in a black-and-white movie that follows a non-linear approach.

Teki Cometh is screening at Tokyo International Film Festival

Gisuke Watanabe is 77 years old, a retired professor of French literature. His wife passed away before him, and he now lives in a traditional Japanese house that has been in his family since his grandfather’s time. He cooks for himself, enjoys a drink with his dinner, and although he has lost touch with many friends, he occasionally shares drinks with a few close ones. Sometimes, he invites former students over for dinner. He calculates how much longer his savings will last, in other words, how much longer he will live.

The Tokyo International Film Festival got underway Monday, just hours after a general election delivered a reduced parliamentary mandate for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. But if Japanese voters once again demonstrated their political apathy, there are signs that Japanese audiences have maintained their appetite for the entertainment industry – and further signals that the Japanese screen industry is coping well with sector disruption.

After a strong recovery in 2023, moderate further growth of the theatrical box office is predicted for this year. One forecast put the year end total at $1.88 billion, cementing Japan as the world’s third largest cinema market.

More importantly for the overall health of the industry, local films continue to dominate. So far this year, Japanese movies account for nine of the top ten titles, headed by the $103 million-grossing “Detective Conan: The Billion Dollar Pentagram.” But what is good for Japanese producers has become a tougher market for Hollywood to penetrate.

The life of one of Japan's most iconic photographers... K5 Intl. has revealed a first look teaser trailer for a biopic film called Ravens from Japan, made by a British filmmaker named Mark Gill (his second feature after England is Mine). The film is premiering at the 2024 Austin Film Festival underway right now – which is this teaser it out to view. The film is a dark fantasy love story about the legendary Japanese photographer Masahisa Fukase and his wife Yoko. This rockin' new biopic stars legendary Japanese actor Tadanobu Asano, who totally ruled the role of Kashigi Yabushige in the "Shogun" series on FX, as the lead character Masahisa Fukase. The cast also includes Kumi Takiuchi as Yoko, Sôsuke Ikematsu, Kanji Furutachi, and Gô Jibiki. After this premiere, it will open in Japan in early 2025 - so expect more updates on the full US release sometime next year. This does...

K5 Intl. has come on board for worldwide sales of the feature film “Ravens,” starring Tadanobu Asano, Emmy nominated for “Shōgun,” and Kumi Takuichi.

The film is directed by Mark Gill, known for Morrissey portrait “England Is Mine” (2017), and short film “The Voorman Problem” (2011), which was Oscar and BAFTA nominated.

K5 Intl. will present “Ravens” at a special screening at Toronto Film Festival and the film will have its world premiere at the Austin Film Festival at the end of October, as Variety exclusively announced.

The film depicts the turbulent love-triangle between maverick Japanese photographer Masahisa Fukase, his model and wife Yoko, and Fukase’s Art, incarnated as an eight-foot talking Raven. “Tender, mischievous and packing emotional sucker-punches, ‘Ravens’ maps the peaks, troughs and collateral damage of a life devoted to art,” according to a statement.

The film is produced by Vestapol, Ark Entertainment, Minded Factory, Katsize Films and The...

The Austin Film Festival (Aff) is set to showcase a remarkable lineup of films at this year’s event, Variety is happy to exclusively announce the first selection of films, including the world premiere of “Ravens,” a magical realist biopic featuring recent Emmy-nominee Tadanobu Asano (“Shogun”).

Also among the highly anticipated premieres is the Texas-made thriller by Chris Beier and Daniel Wolfman centered around a washed-up Youtube star titled “The Ego Death of Queen Cecilia,” “Silent Notes,” a romantic neo-noir starring Daniel Durant (“Coda”) and the film adaptation of the Broadway play “The Piano Lesson” from Netflix starring Samuel L. Jackson and John David Washington, which just recently released a trailer. These films are part of Aff’s first wave of screenings, highlighting some of the year’s best in independent filmmaking.

Additional programming includes “Black Dog,” which received the Un Certain Regard award at Cannes this year as well as Ecuadorian horror film “Shaman.

Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan (Aca) will present the third Aca Cinema Project series: New Films from Japan organized as part of a “Japan Film Overseas Expansion Enhancement Project”, in collaboration with the IFC Center and Visual Industry Promotion Organization (Vipo) with theatrical engagements of Yujiro Harumoto’s A Balance and Keisuke Yoshida’s Blue, March 11-17, 2022.

Aca Cinema Project is proud to introduce US audiences to the best of recent Japanese cinema including Keisuke Yoshida’s Blue, a gripping boxing drama starring Kenichi Matsuyama, Masahiro Higashide and Fumino Kimura, the former two actors appearing on-screen together for the first time since Satoshi: A Move for Tomorrow. Earning the title of “The Master of Psychological Drama” Yoshida was honored with a special Director in Focus program at 2021’s Tokyo International Film Festival.

Winner of the New Current Award at the Busan International Film Festival and an official selection at Berlinale,...

For “Kamata Prelude” Japanese actress Urara Matsubayashi turned producer and brought together Ryutaro Nakagawa, Mayu Akiyama, Yuka Yasukawa and Hirobumi Watanabe, who each direct one episode of this omnibus film. But Matsubayashi’s input doesn’t stop there, she set out to make a film focusing on sexual harassment in the Japanese film industry, based on what she experienced herself and saw happening around her. To underline her commitment to the film and its message, she also takes up the lead role.

Kamata Prelude is screening at Nippon Connection

At first glance “Kamata Prelude” tells the story of Machiko Kamata, a young, struggling actress who we see at auditions. She has to deal with different degrees of sexual harassment; however, the film also explores her dreams, anxieties and ambitions. This gives a deeper layer, not only looking at the way women are treated in the Japanese film industry, but in society as a whole.

Exclusive: Writer-director Mark Gill is set to bring the life of legendary Japanese photographer Masahisa Fukase to the big screen with Ravens (The Many Deaths of Masahisa Fukase). Filming is set to begin in Japan in the spring of 2022.

Ravens marks the sophomore feature for the Oscar and BAFTA-nominated Gill and will star Tadanobu Asano in the role of the iconic photographer. Asano can be seen in the forthcoming Mortal Kombat feature as Raiden. He also appeared in Marvel Studios’ Thor franchise as Hogun and in Japanese classics such as Ichi the Killer and The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi.

Ravens centers on the tragic love story between Fukase and his charismatic then-wife Yoko, who will be played by up and comer Kumi Takiuchi. The actress has also appeared in Berlinale’s Panorama-selected A Balance. In addition, Toby Kebbell joins the cast...

Haruhiko Arai (recently portrayed by Kisetsu Fujiwara in “Dare to Stop Us“) has always been a somewhat controversial personality in his more than 40 years in the movie industry, although his prowess in script writing is undeniable. One of the elements that make his work stand out, is that he is one of the few Japanese artists who uses explicit sex in organic fashion in his movies, not mainly to titillate, but as part of the overall narrative, with films like “Vibrator” and “Kabukicho Love Hotel” highlighting this trait in the best fashion. This approach is also obvious in his third (fourth if you count a co-director credit in “Gushing Prayer“) directorial effort which netted him awards from Kinema Junpo and Yokohama Film Festival.

It Feels so Good is screening at Camera Japan

Akita and Naoko are cousins but also used to be lovers some time ago. Since then, however, their...

It devastated a nation and left billions across the world speechless. Swallowing whole regions deep into the sea, the merciless waters claimed the lives of almost sixteen-thousand men, women, and children and some two-and-a-half thousand souls remain missing to this day. Livelihoods and relationships levelled, lost, and left to ruin. Adding insult to misery came the nuclear fallout, rendering farmlands, villages and whole towns uninhabitable, like the ending of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s ghostly “Pulse”; a haunting playground of homes, shops, offices, arcades. These scars are still felt to this day, etched into the faces of those survivors forced to carry on living, trying to find some sense of normality, of happiness. For the characters in Ryuichi Hiroki’s torturous odyssey “Side Job” (‘Kanojo no Jinsei wa Machigai Janai / Her Life Is Not At Fault’), trapped in-situ within their self-loathing, within their numb forlorn shells, the thought of moving on, or going back to before,...

Stars: Kumi Takiuchi, Takashi Sasano, Aira, Itsuji Itao, Kkobbi Kim, Hôka Kinoshita, Kenji Matsuda, Wakana Sakai, Taro Yabe | Written by Eiji Uchida, Etsuo Hiratani | Directed by Eiji Uchida

In films that have a twisted edge, if a child grows up dysfunctional you know that somebody is likely to die. Greatful Dead is a twisted tale that brings slapstick humour to Japanese horror, looking at what happens when a child grows up without getting the attention she craves.

Nami (Kumi Takiuchi) is anything but ordinary, even though her sister would like her to be. As a child all she wanted was the attention of her parents, but with a mother who travelled the world to save needy children (though not her own) and a father who commits suicide soon after the mothers departure all Nami gets is a fortune to live on and peaceful solitude. Obsessing over lonely people she names...

★★★☆☆ Eiji Uchida's Greatful Dead (2013) combines several genres with an extremely compelling outcome. Black humour and mild farce combine to provide the tone and make it more than just an intriguing watch. Nami (Kumi Takiuchi) has been disillusioned with the idea of family from a young age; after her mother left to help children in a far flung land her father collapsed in on himself, confiding only in a mysterious woman in red and shutting out his two daughters. Nami's sister attempts ‘a normal life’ but Nami is left to find comfort in the welcoming bosom of a television shopping channel. When her father dies Nami is able to indulge in her hobby of finding and observing other similarly solitary figures. She becomes fixated on one elderly man, Mr Shiomi (Takashi Sasano), with unexpected consequences.

(Screened at the 2013 Raindance Film Festival) “Greatful Dead” is an oddly spelled title for an odd, though very entertaining piece of cinematic madness. Written and directed by Eiji Uchida (“Sisterhood”, “The Last Days of the World”), the film is a far-out mix of dark comedy, gore, social commentary and loneliness, with upcoming actress Kumi Takiuchi (“The Ravine of Goodbye”) in the lead as a young woman whose initially harmless people-watching turns nasty. Off-kilter in a fashion reminiscent of Sono Sion, the film has considerable cult appeal, and is currently going down well with fans at a variety of international festivals, having played at Fantastic Fest and Raindance in London. Kumi Takiuchi plays Nami, the film opening with her as a young girl, struggling to get attention from her mother, who’s sadly obsessed with trying to raise money for poverty-stricken children overseas. After she leaves, her father falls into depression,...