October is just for Halloween in Tokyo. This month we have the Tokyo International Film Festival, which will begin on October 24 and continue until November 2. As always, this year’s show will feature a mix of Japanese and foreign language films, some of which will have its world premiere at TIFF. Here’s everything you want to know about the upcoming festival, as well as some highlights to stay up to.
Takahisa Zeze’s “Fragments of the Last Will” will have its world premiere as the festival’s opening film. The drama, starring Kazunari Ninomiya and Keiko Kitagawa, is based on the true story of a Japanese soldier who was taken prisoner in the Soviet Union in the World War II ended, never giving up hope of returning to his family circle in Japan.
The festival’s final film will be 2022’s “Living,” directed by Oliver Hermanus, starring Bill Nighy (“Love Actually”) as a 1950s official who accepts his recent diagnosis of abdominal cancer. The screenplay was written by the Nobel Prize-winning novelist. Kazuo Ishiguro, as an adaptation of Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 film “Ikiru”.
This atmospheric and superbly disturbing film by director Takeshi Fukunaga is a ghost story set in the Tohoku region of the last eighteenth century. In the film, Anna Yamada plays a young woman named Rin who suffers from starvation. When he is about to die, Rin manages to make his way from his village to the forests of Mount Hayashin, where he encounters an extensive family of mysterious spirits.
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 named Susume who one day meets an enigmatic young woman named Miyako. Susume is temporarily beaten. Miyako’s capricious and inscrutable habit, but she gets frustrated when she suddenly stops answering her messages and evades her questions about their relationship. Before long, Susume learns that Miyako’s habit is more than she first thought, and things go wrong when she tries to locate more about her turbulent past.
This LGBT film directed by Daishi Matsunaga is based on Makoto Takayama’s autobiography of the same name. The story centers on a guy named Kosuke (Ryohei Suzuki) who left his small hometown in rural Japan to go to Tokyo to be editor of a fashion magazine. Despite his designer outfits and high-level work, Kosuke still can’t help but feel like a vacancy devours him. Only when he meets the private master Ryuta (Hio Miyazawa) does he realize what he has lacked from the beginning.
In this drama centered on a mother-daughter relationship, Mizuki Yoshida (“Alice in Borderland”) plays a teenage woman with breast cancer. While accepting her recent diagnosis and struggling with the romantic emotions she feels for one of her classmates. , Chiharu feels estranged from her single mother Akiko (Takako Tokiwa).
This film by award-winning Syrian director Soudade Kadan tells an allegorical story of female autonomy. In the film, the circle of relatives of 14-year-old Zeina lives in Damascus, Syria, where most citizens have evacuated the war. city in search of safety. Zeina’s hometown is still under intense attack, yet her father Mutaz refuses to move the circle of relatives elsewhere for fear that accommodating a refugee will bring even more disorder and uncertainty to the circle of relatives. When a missile hits the circle of the relatives’ house and leaves a hole in the roof, Zeina suddenly exposes herself to the outside world and contemplates what awaits her beyond her father’s iron grip on the circle of relatives.
The 2021 Oscar-winning film “Coda” arrives at TIFF this year for a loose screening not to be missed. Written and directed by Sian Heder, this coming-of-age drama is an adaptation of a 2014 Franco-Belgian film about 17-year-old Ruthrough and his circle of deaf relatives. Ruthrough is the only member of her circle of relatives who can hear, so her circle of relatives trusts her to help them interpret for them. While a full-time student, Ruthrough also works overtime. to keep the fishing business of his circle of relatives afloat. Later, when she auditions for Berklee College of Music and is accepted into her dream school, Ruthrough finds herself in the difficult position of having to decide between her circle of relatives and pursue her passion. .
This film directed by Houguy Seyedi has been selected as Iran’s submission for the Best International Feature Film category at the upcoming Oscars. The story centers on a guy named Shakib who lost his wife and son in an earthquake. Shakib is running on a set of filmación. se is producing for a World War II movie, but when the actor playing Hitler collapses, Shakib is selected to upgrade him. Shakib is also informed that he can remain in the actor’s position until further notice, as long as he does not invite anyone. , and his scenario becomes even stranger.
Written and directed by Sanjeewa Pushpakumara, the Sri Lankan film will have its world premiere at TIFF this year. Akalanka Prabashwara plays the lead role of a guy named Amila who paints on a Chinese structure site. Amila has lost her parents and the decision to move to Colombo with her four siblings, adding her sister Inoka, who suffers from a birth defect at the centre. Desperate to raise more money to pay for an expensive surgery Inoka has to undergo in India, Amila discovers paintings at a startup. Only after changing jobs, you are informed that the new company you work for is making money by trafficking unwanted young children to strangers.
General tickets will go on sale on October 15. Want to see the full list of films screened at TIFF this year?Check the program on the website of the occasion.
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