October isn’t just for Halloween in Tokyo. This month, we’ve got the annual Tokyo International Film Festival that will kick off on October 24 and run through November 2. As always, this year’s showcase will feature a combination of foreign language and Japanese films, a few of which will have their world premiere at TIFF. Here’s everything you need to know about the upcoming festival, as well as a few highlights to look out for.
Opening film: Fragments of the Last Will
Takahisa Zeze's 'Fragments of the Last Will' will have its world premiere as the festival’s opening film. The drama, which stars Kazunari Ninomiya and Keiko Kitagawa, is based on a true story about a Japanese soldier who was taken prisoner by the Soviet Union at the end of World War II but never gave up hope of returning to his family in Japan.
Closing film: Living
The festival’s closing film will be 2022’s 'Living' directed by Oliver Hermanus, which stars Bill Nighy (‘Love Actually’) as a 1950s civil servant who is coming to terms with his recent diagnosis of stomach cancer. The screenplay is written by Nobel Prize-winning novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, as an adaptation of Akira Kurosawa's 1952 film 'Ikiru'.
Recommended Japanese films
Mountain Woman
This atmospheric and beautifully haunting film from director Takeshi Fukunaga is a ghost story set in the Tohoku region in the late 18th century. In the film, Anna Yamada plays a young woman called Rin who is suffering from famine. While she is on the brink of death, Rin manages to make her way from her village into the forests of Mt Hayachine, where she encounters a clan of mysterious spirits.
In Her Room
Chihiro Ito makes her directorial debut with this film adapted from her own novel. Starring Satoru Iguchi and Fumika Baba, ‘In Her Room’ follows a socially awkward dentist called Susume who one day meets an enigmatic young woman called Miyako. Susume is quickly transfixed by Miyako’s whimsy and inscrutable demeanour, but is frustrated when she suddenly stops responding to his messages and evades his questions about their relationship. Before long, Susume learns that there’s more to Miyako’s bizarre behaviour than he initially thought and things get messy when he tries to find out more about her murky past.
Egoist
This LGBT film directed by Daishi Matsunaga is based on Makoto Takayama's eponymous autobiography. The story centres on a man called Kosuke (Ryohei Suzuki) who left his small hometown in rural Japan for Tokyo to become an editor at a fashion magazine. Despite his designer outfits and high-profile job, however, Kosuke can’t help but feel a gnawing emptiness inside him. It’s not until he meets personal trainer Ryuta (Hio Miyazawa) that he realises what he’s been missing all along.
The Lump in My Heart
In this drama that centres on a mother-daughter relationship, Mizuki Yoshida (‘Alice in Borderland’) plays a teenager who is diagnosed with breast cancer. As she comes to terms with her recent diagnosis and grapples with the romantic feelings she has for one of her classmates, Chiharu feels herself growing distant from her single mother Akiko (Takako Tokiwa).
Recommended international films
Nezouh
This film from the award-winning Syrian director Soudade Kadan tells an allegorical story of female autonomy. In the film, 14-year-old Zeina’s family live in Damascus, Syria, where the majority of residents have evacuated the war-torn city in search of safety. Zeina’s hometown is still actively under attack, but her father Mutaz refuses to move the family elsewhere out of fear that becoming refugees will bring even more problems and uncertainty for the family. When a missile hits the family home and leaves a gaping hole in their roof, Zeina is suddenly exposed to the world outside and she contemplates what awaits her beyond her father’s tight hold on the family.
Coda
The 2021 Academy Award-winning film ‘Coda’ is coming to TIFF this year for an unmissable free outdoor screening. Written and directed by Sian Heder, this coming-of-age drama is an adaptation of a 2014 French-Belgian film about 17-year-old Ruby and her deaf family. Ruby is the only member of her household who can hear, so her family depends on her to help interpret for them. While she’s a full-time student, Ruby also works overtime to keep her family’s struggling fishing business afloat. Later, when she auditions for the Berklee College of Music and is accepted to her dream school, Ruby finds herself in the difficult position of having to choose between her family and pursuing her passion.
World War III
This film directed by Houman Seyedi has been selected as Iran’s submission for the Best International Feature category in the next Academy Awards. The story centres on a man called Shakib who has lost his wife and a child in an earthquake. Shakib works on a film set that is in the middle of production for a film about World War II, but when the actor who plays Hitler suddenly collapses, Shakib is selected to replace him. Shakib is also told that he can stay in the actor’s mansion until further notice, on the condition that he doesn’t invite any guests over, and his situation becomes all the more bizarre.
Peacock Lament
Written and directed by Sanjeewa Pushpakumara, this Sri Lankan film is set to have its world premiere at TIFF this year. Akalanka Prabashwara plays the lead as a man called Amila who works on a Chinese construction site. Amila has lost both his parents, so puts it upon himself to move to Colombo in order to provide for his four siblings, including his sister Inoka who suffers from a congenital heart defect. Desperate to raise more money to pay for an expensive surgery that Inoka needs to get in India, Amila finds work at a new company. It’s only after he switches jobs that he learns that the new company he works for makes its money through trafficking unwanted babies for foreigners.
How to get tickets
General tickets go on sale online on October 15. Want to see the full list of films screening at TIFF this year? See the lineup on the event's website.
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