Japan Cuts returns to cinema screens in New York from July 10th – July 21st and it follows last year’s youth/indie focussed edition by bringing in new talent as well as mainstream movies that have been building buzz on the festival circuit.
This year’s festival features five International Premieres, 10 North American Premieres, four U.S. Premieres, two East Coast Premieres and seven New York Premieres, and many guests, including:
Mirai Moriyama (Shadow of Fire/Great Absence), who is in town for the CUT ABOVE Award for Outstanding Achievement in Film;
Tatsuya Fuji (Great Absence), who will get a Lifetime Achievement Award;
Kei Chika-ura (Great Absence);
Gakuryu Ishii (The Box Man, August in the Water);
Ema Ryan Yamazaki (The Making of a Japanese);
Masanori Tominaga (Between the White Key and the Black Key);
Noriko Yuasa (Performing KAORU’s Funeral);
Shinya Tsukamoto (Shadow of Fire);
Tomoko Tabata (Moving).
Tickets on sale now for Japan Society members and will be made available for the general public on June 11.
Here’s a glimpse of the line-up starting with the indie end of things:
NEXT GENERATION
映画（窒息）「Eiga (Chissoku)」
Release Date: November 11th, 2023
Duration: 108 mins.
Director: Gen Nagao
Writer: Gen Nagao (Screenplay),
Starring: Misa Wada, Daiki Hiba, Takashi Nishina, Yuri Tajima, Minori Terada, Hiroshi Niki,
Synopsis: This black-and-white film takes place in a world without language and so its story is told without dialogue. Humanity has regressed and one such human is a woman who lives in an abandoned building who forages for goods to trade while she fends off bandits. One day, she captures a young man and the two soon fall in love.
少女は卒業しない 「Shoujo wa Sotsugyou Shinai」
Release Date: February 23rd, 2023
Duration: 120 mins.
Director: Shun Nakagawa
Writer: Shun Nakagawa (Screenplay), Ryo Asai (Original Stories)
Starring: Yuumi Kawai, Rina Ono, Rina Komiyama, Tomo Nakai, Kistetsu Fujiwara,
Rina Ono (Pop!, On the Edge of their Seats) is one of a quartet of fresh young actresses taking on an anthology film of coming-of-age stories set in a high school two days two days before they graduate.
Synopsis: The high school is about to close and the building is scheduled to be demolished. Yuki Goto, the head of the basketball team, who is moving to Tokyo for higher education, has an awkward relationship with her boyfriend Terada, who remains in her hometown. Kanda Kyoko, the head of the light music club, has feelings for her childhood friend Morisaki. Shiori Sakuta, who does not fit in with her class and goes to the library, has a faint crush on Mr. Sakaguchi, who manages the library. Manami Yamashiro, who will give the valedictorian speech, is unable to tell her boyfriend about her feelings.
莉の対 「Rei no Tsui」
Release Date: May 31st, 2024
Duration: 189 mins.
Director: Toshihiko Tanaka
Writer: Toshihiko Tanaka (Screenplay),
Starring: Takara Suzuki, Toshihiko Tanaka, Maeko Oyama, Shogo Moriyama, Akio Ikeda,
Toshihiko Tanaka originally worked in the banking sector but switched to acting and has been active mainly on the stage. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he studied filmmaking and produced this film made with a cast and crew of mostly non-professionals and students.
The title of the film is based on the Kanji character “Rei (莉).” It can be a genderless given name or it can represent a variety of meanings, especially when connected with others.
This won the Tiger Award at Rotterdam 2024.
Synopsis: This drama focuses on a thirtysomething named Hikari Matsushita. Her Tokyo life consists of going to the office and going to plays. It is stable compared to those around her but she feels a lack of self-worth. Meaning comes into it through the pictures of a deaf landscape photographer named Masato. She begins a relationship with him and travels to his home in Hokkaido just as the lives of the people around her, and her own life, falls apart. However, it is through struggling alongside counterparts that meaning is found in life and Hikari finds a sense of self.
ブルーイマジン 「Buru- Imajin」
Release Date: March 16th, 2024
Duration: 93 mins.
Director: Urara Matsubayashi
Writer: Minami Goto (Screenplay),
Starring: Mayu Yamaguchi, Asuka Kawatoko, Yui Kitamura, Yuzumi Shintani, Iana Bernardez, Hirobumi Watanabe,
Website Twitter: @blueimaginefilm IMDB
Urara Matsubayashi has risen from being an actress (The Hungry Lion) to producer (Kamata Prelude, Saga Saga) to this film where she is a director. Each of her works has a #MeToo theme and this is the most explicit and thorough examination of it yet. It tackles sexual assault and predatory directors in the Japanese film industry and also shows why solidarity with victims, and showing kindness and understanding, is important.
Synopsis: Noel is an aspiring actress who has maintained her silence as a rape victim. When she finds a share house for women called “Blue Imagine”, she begins a slow process of healing as she interacts with other inhabitants who have been through similar experiences of abuse. The camaraderie she finds allows her to come to the aid of another actress who was targeted by the same director and the two publicly speak out. The two encounter prejudice and backlash but are able to confront their past and try to confront a culture hostile to women.
カオルの葬式 「Kaoru no Soshiki」
Release Date: 2024
Duration: 100 mins.
Director: Noriko Yuasa
Writer: Takato Nishi, Noriko Yuasa (Screenplay),
Starring: Koji Seki, Kano Ichiki, Chise Niitsu, Asuka Kurosawa, Daijiro Harada, Tomomitsu Adachi,
I have been following Noriko Yuasa’s career since Osaka Asian Film Festival 2018 where I saw her short Ordinary Everyday. I followed that with her other shorts Looking For My Lost Sunflowers (2014), Girl, Wavering (2015) and Coming Back Sunny (2019) – for which I interviewed her, and then her sophomore feature, Performing KAORU’s Funeral which I covered as part of Osaka Asian Film Festival 2024 and for which I got a chance to interview her.
Synopsis: When a screenwriter named KAORU dies suddenly, she leaves behind a tangle of relations who are all pulled together for the final act in her life: performing her funeral. The chief mourner is her ex-husband, Jun. A failed actor, he drifts around Tokyo as a driver for callgirls. He has to clean himself up to lead the ceremony down in the small village in Okayama that KAORU came from. There, he meets a host of eccentric characters, TV people, and KAORU ’s daughter, all of whom have complicated feelings for the recently departed. Performing Kaoru’s funeral will be difficult for Jun as he finds himself facing a tough crowd but, through these people’s memories, different aspects of the woman will be revealed.
Black comedy and poignant sights of grief emerge as concise scenes rich with distinctive characters and well-orchestrated flashbacks play out while the funeral rumbles on. It is almost as if KAORU had scripted the event herself.
リテイク 「Riteiku」
Release Date: 2024
Duration: 110 mins.
Director: Kota Nakano
Writer: Kota Nakano (Screenplay),
Starring: Yuta Muto, Urara, Areina Takano, Nako Ohara, Ryusei Chiba,
Twitter: @retake_movie
Synopsis: This was the winner of the 2023 Pia Film Festival Grand-Prix and it tells a story of high school students making a movie over their summer break.
I have included the following film here because the formatting of the post has gone screwy. It belongs in the documentary section…
小学校～それは小さな社会～ 「Shogakko ～Sore wa Chisana Shakai～」
Release Date: 2024
Duration: 99 mins.
Director: Ema Ryan Yamazaki
Writer: N/A
Starring: N/A
Ema Ryan Yamazaki is a filmmaker who first came to my notice with Koshien: Japan’s Field of Dreams (2019). Over the last year, she has had her hand in award-winning docs like Black Box Diaries and this one which took the best documentary award at Nippon Connection 2024.
Synopsis: Ema Ryan Yamazaki spent a year documenting the activities of first and sixth grade students and teachers in an elementary school in a Tokyo suburb. By following their development as individuals, Yamazaki captures what it means to learn and become a member of Japanese society.
CLASSICS
Moving [4K Digitally Restored Version]
お引越し 「Ohikkoshi」
Running Time: 124 mins.
Release Date: March 23rd, 1993
Director: Shinji Somai
Writer: Satoshi Okonogi, Satoko Okudera (Screenplay), Hiko Tanaka (Original Novel)
Starring: Tomoko Tabata, Junko Sakurada, Kiichi Nakai, Mariko Sudo, Taro Tanaka, Ippei Shigeyama, Nagiko Tono, Konami Nakai,
Shinji Somai was one of the biggest directors in Japan in the 1980s and 90s and made around 13 films before his death in 2001. Despite the popularity of his films, he was lesser known in the West until he netted his biggest festival spot in 1993 when Moving Ohikkoshi was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival. Nearly a decade ago, he was the subject of a revival in interest thanks to retrospectives at the Edinburgh International Film Festival and Nippon Connection and some of his films getting screened at various Japan Foundation events but despite that, his works are still hard to find on DVD and Blu-Ray. That is changing as Third Window Films is going to put out the 4K remaster of Typhoon Club on home video.
Moving/Ohikkoshi is one of his most popular and deals with one of his most utilised stories, that of a dislocated adolescents and the turbulent emotions they feel. It features sensitive writing and direction that allows the child actors to really get into their roles.
The film has a winning performance from child actor Tomoko Tabata who has grown into a fine leading lady with performances in films like The Cowards Who Look to the Sky. Screenwriter Satoko Okudera’s first noted work on a screenplay came with this film. She has subsequently become known for her collaborations with anime director Mamoru Hosoda on The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Summer Wars, and The Wolf Children. She also wrote the screenplay for Permanent Nobara.
This was screened at the Venice International Film Festival 2023 and Tokyo FILMeX. Other upgraded Shinji Somai films are getting released. So far, Typhoon Club, and Luminous Woman have been given the home release treatment – check out Third Window Films for more.
Synopsis: Renko is in the sixth grade when her parents decide to separate. Initially she is happy about the situation, not having had any idea that they might divorce, and enjoys the fact that she now has two homes. She begins feeling uneasy when her mother tries to draw up a ‘contract’ for their life together, which asserts their independence from her father while he cannot provide any satisfactory answers about why they divorced. Renko also becomes concerned about what will happen at school if her classmates find out, given that they already tease another girl whose parents have divorced. Renko’s boyfriend at school, Minoru, draws up a sure-fire plan to bring her parents back together but will it work?
水の中の八月 「Mizu no naka no hachigatsu」
Release Date: September 09th, 1995
Duration: 110 mins.
Director: Gakuryu Ishii
Writer: Gakuryu Ishii (Screenplay),
Starring: Rena Komine, Shinsuke Aoki, Reiko Matsuo, Kou Machida, Masaaki Takarai, Terumi Matsuno, Rina Yamanoi,
This is an incredible chance to see a beloved 90s movie since it will be screened via an imported 35mm Print and with director Gakuryu Ishii (formerly Sogo Ishii) at the event in person.
Synopsis: Izumi, high dive prodigy, is the new transfer student at school but she becomes extra special amidst cosmic changes and strange phenomena after a diving accident leaves her changed. Awakened to a heightened consciousness, with a schoolmate, she search for the source of widespread ecological and epidemiological problems.
人魚伝説 「Ningyo Densetsu」
Release Date: April 14th, 1984
Duration: 110 mins.
Director: Toshiharu Ikeda
Writer: Takyuya Nishioka (Screenplay), Kazuhiko Miyaya (Original Story)
Starring: Mari Shirato, Jun Eto, Kentaro Shimizu, Junko Miyashita, Takashi Kanda, Hiroko Seki,
Film fans went crazy for this when this re-emerged into public consciousness a couple of years ago and comes amid a wave of new appreciation of the works of filmmakers from the 80s like Shinji Somai and Kiyoshi Kurosawa.
Synopsis: Migiwa is an ama diver whose husband s killed for witnessing a murder. Caught in the middle of powerful local figures and yakuza and framed for her husband’s murder, she seeks revenge…
FEATURES
Between White Keys and Black Keys 
白鍵と黒鍵の間に 「Hakken to Kokken no Aida ni」
Release Date: October 06th, 2023
Duration: 94 mins.
Director: Masanori Tominaga
Writer: Masanori Tominaga, Tomoyuki Takahashi (Screenplay), Hiroshi Minami (Original Story)
Starring: Sosuke Ikematsu, Riisa Naka, Crystal Kay, Yoriko Doguchi, Yota Kawase, Go Morita, Shiro Sano,
Director Masanori Tominaga (Dynamite Graffiti (2018), Rolling (2015)) of has adapted musician Hiroshi Minami’s memoir “Between the White and Black Keys: A Jazz Pianist’s Elegy in Ginza” for the screen and has assembled quite an interesting cast.
Sosuke Ikematsu – The Tokyo Night Sky is the Densest Shade of Blue
Yoriko Doguchi – Kitano and Kurosawa films
Crystal Kay – singer
Riisa Naka
Shiro Sano – To Sleep So as to Dream
Synopsis: The year is 1988 and she Showa period is coming to an end. At a yakuza-run cabaret bar in Ginza, Hiroshi, an aspiring jazz pianist, is asked by a mysterious man to play “The Godfather: Theme of Love.” The problem with that is that the yakuza boss is the only one who can request that song and a pianist named Minami is the only one who can play it. The fate of Hiroshi and Minami get wrapped together…
首 「Kubi」
Release Date: November 23rd, 2023
Duration: 131 mins.
Director: Takeshi Kitano, Shuta Takahata
Writer: Takeshi Kitano, Takehiko Minato (Screenplay), Takeshi Kitano (Original Book)
Starring: Ken Watanabe, Beat Takeshi, Hidetoshi Nishijima, Ryo Kase, Nao Omori, Shido Nakamura II, Tadanobu Asano, Kenichi Endo, Susumu Terajima, Kenta Kiritani, Jun Soejima, Ittoku Kishibe, Yoshiyoshi Arakawa, Kanji Tsuda,
Seven years since his last directorial effort, Kitano is back with a historical film.
This is the 19th film by Takeshi Kitano and it is based on a novel he wrote. For this production, he also wrote the script and edited the footage.
Looking at various notes, it seems that this was conceived 30 years ago, around the same time as Sonatine (1993), his breakthrough hit internationally. It even attracted the attention of Akira Kurosawa who had shown an interest in the work.
Takeshi Natsuno, president and representative director of Kadokawa studio has said, “It is a rare film, on a scale similar to Akira Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai and Kagemusha, with a tragicomic quality that feels Shakespearean.” The scale of the story certainly sounds impressive based on the convoluted synopsis based on the real-life incident at Honno-ji of 1582 as the film retells the assassination of Oda Nobunaga in a temple in Kyoto.
The cast is incredible as it features familiar Kitano collaborators and the cream of the crop of acting talent to emerge in the 80s and 90s. It stars Ken Watanabe, Tadanobu Asano (Bright Future), Hidetoshi Nishijima (License to Live, Drive My Car), Susumu Terajima (Hole in the Sky), and Ryo Kase (Outrage).
Synopsis: As Oda Nobunaga (Ryo Kase) wages his campaign to unify Japan, a general named Murashige Araki (Kenichi Endo) rebels and disappears. Nobunaga summons his generals, Mitsuhide Akechi (Hidetoshi Nishijima) and Hideyoshi Hashiba (Beat Takeshi), and orders them to search for and capture Murashige. Plotting between generals and a former ninja escalates as they are unable to kill Murashige and this frustrates Nobunaga’s plans. He soon comes to believe that Tokugawa Ieyasu (Kobayashi Kaoru) is the mastermind behind everything and orders the assassination of Ieyasu. MEANWHILE, peasants take to the battlefields to improve their station in life. All of these characters and storylines converge on Honno-ji.
キリエのうた 「Kirie no Uta 」
Release Date: October 13th, 2023
Duration: 178 mins.
Director: Shunji Iwai
Writer: Shunji Iwai (Screenplay),
Starring: Aina the End, Hokuto Matsumura, Haru Kuroki, Suzu Hirose, Nijiro Murakami, Megumi Okina, Miyoko Asada, Yuya Matsuura, Yosuke Egichi,
This work is based on a novel by Shunji Iwai (The Bride of Rip Van Winkle) and features real singer/musician AINA THE END, who was a part of BiSH.
Synopsis: One evening, at the south exit of Shinjuku Station, a young singer-songwriter named Kyrie begins singing and playing her guitar. Her singing attracts the attention of pedestrians and she earns a lot of money. One such pedestrian is an old friend from high school. The two share a history linked to their time at school in Sendai, the crossed emotions they share with each other and the people around them, and also the Great East Japan Earthquake. A tapestry involving all of these people emerges from Kyrie’s song.
唄う六人の女 「Utau Rokunin no Onna」
Release Date: October 27th, 2023
Duration: 112 mins.
Director: Yoshimasa Ishibashi
Writer: Yoshimasa Ishibashi, Yosuke Otani (Screenplay),
Starring: Yutaka Takenouchi, Takayuki Yamada, Asami Mizukawa, Aoi Yamada, Minori Hagiwara, Momoka, Rena Takeda, Misaki Hattori,
Yutaka Takenouchi (three films out this year) and Takayuki Yamada (MILOCRORZE – A Love Story, Hard-Core) portray characters who find themselves in a village populated by beautiful women played by the likes of Asami Mizukawa (A Beloved Wife, Fuku-chan of Fukufuku Flats) and Rena Takeda (Poetry Angel). There’s gotta be a catch… READ ON!
Synopsis: Kayajima and Uwajima are both heading to Kayajima’s father’s house high up in the mountains upon hearing of the old man’s death. Kayashima will be a major part of the funeral while Kayajima is expecting news on inheriting land. They get into an accident. When they wake up, they find themselves in a beautiful village populated by six beautiful, and mysterious women, each of whom has a strange and somewhat disturbing personality. Are the men captive or…?
夜明けのすべて 「Yoake no Subete」
Release Date: February 09th, 2024
Duration: 119 mins.
Director: Sho Miyake
Writer: Sho Miyake, Kiyoto Wada (Screenplay), Maiko Seo (Original Novel),
Starring: Mone Kamishiraishi, Hokuto Matsumura, Kiyohiko Shibukawa, Ken Mitsuishi Ryo, Haruka Imou, Sawako Fujima,
Website Twitter: @yoakenosubete IMDB
My first encounter with Sho Miyake was through the film Wild Tour (2018). He has since gone on to make And Your Bird Can Sing (2018), and Small, Slow But Steady (2022), the Japan Academy Award hit film. He also directed Ju-on: Origins but we won’t talk about that.
Synopsis: Misa Fujisawa experiences premenstrual syndrome and she is unable to control her irritability. During one particularly severe bout of PMS, she explodes with anger at a work colleague, a new hire named Takatoshi Yamazoe who seems unmotivated at work. His behaviour is because he has something going on inside himself, too. He suffers from panic disorder and has become withdrawn. The more time they spend together, the more they develop a mutual understanding and a bond forms as they see ways to support each other.
ほかげ 「Hokage」
Release Date: November 25th, 2023
Duration: 95 mins.
Director: Shinya Tsukamoto
Writer: Shinya Tsukamoto (Screenplay),
Starring: Shuri, Ouga Tsukao, Hiroki Kono, Go Riju, Tatsushi Omori, Mirai Moriyama,
Shinya Tsukamoto (Tokyo Fist, Vital) gives audiences a tale of broken people in the black markets of post-war Japan. It stars Shuri (Love at Least), Mirai Moriyama (The Drudgery Train), and Hiroki Kono, director of the Pia Film Festival Grand Prix award-winning film J005311. This is apparently part of Tsukamoto’s war trilogy, which includes Fires On the Plain and Killing.
Synopsis: As Japan rebuilds itself from the ruins of war, one person, a woman living alone in a half-burnt ramen restaurant, looks after a boy who lost his family in an air raid. The two survive by her selling her body and the occasional stealing of food from the black market. When a former soldier comes seeking her services, he gets close to both the woman and the little boy but violence soon erupts between the adults who cannot escape their traumas and the boy finds himself on the road with a man who is haunted by nightmares of his past. The man’s reason for travelling with the boy are soon revealed to be connected to taking revenge on the person who left him with those nightmares.
鯨の骨 「Kujira no Hone」
Release Date: October 13th, 2023
Duration: 88 mins.
Director: Takamasa Oe
Writer: Takamasa Oe, Kaito Kikuchi (Screenplay),
Starring: Motoki Ochia, Ano, Ayaka Onishi, Mayu Yokota, Shohei Uno, Toshiaki Inomata,
This film was written and directed by Takamasa Oe, co-screenwriter of Drive My Car (2021),
Synopsis: Mamiya is an office worker on the verge of marriage whose biggest problem is insomnia until his fiancée decides to call it quits. After a colleague recommends that Mamiya meet a high school girl through a dating app, he takes her home but things get even worse because she commits suicide on his bed. He panics and decides to bury the body in the woods but it disappears from his car. Just when things couldn’t get any crazier, Mamiya discovers that she is a popular influencer named “Asuka” on an SNS app called “Mimi” and that he can meet her again through the app. He discovers that while Asuka is a charismatic figure with many fans, she is just as lonely as he is. The border between reality and illusion collapses as he follows her trail.
大いなる不在 「Oinaru Fuzai」
Release Date: July 12th, 2024
Duration: 152 mins.
Director: Kei Chika-ura
Writer: Kei Chika-ura, Keita Kumano (Screenplay),
Starring: Mirai Moriyama, Tatsuya Fuji, Yoko Maki, Hideko Hara,
This first emerged at Toronto 2023. A great cast led by Mirai Moriyama (The Drudgery Train, Mountain Woman) and Tatsuya Fuji (Let Him Rest in Peace) take the stage in Kei Chika-ura’s sophomore feature, a film based partly on his own personal experience and shot on 35mm.
Synopsis: Takashi (Mirai Moriyama) returns home to Kyushu when police call him about his estranged father Yohji (Tatsuya Fuji). It seems that Yohji’s wife Naomi, is missing and may have committed suicide. During this mystery, the old man’s dementia plays a part.
箱男 「Hako Otoku」
Release Date: August 23rd, 2024
Duration: 120 mins.
Director: Gakuryu Ishii
Writer: Gakuryu Ishii, Kiyotaka Inagaki (Screenplay), Kobo Abe (Original Story)
Starring: Masatoshi Nagase, Tadanobu Asano, Koichi Sato, Ayana Shiramoto, Yuko Nakamura
This is based on a novel by Kobo Abe that was published in 1973. First seen at Berlinale 2024.
Synopsis: A photographer named “Myself” spots a man with a cardboard box over his head venturing around Tokyo and writing down what he sees through a peephole. Inspired to do the same thing, “Myself” dons a box himself but a variety of people try to tempt “Myself” from his new lifestyle…
アイスクリームフィーバー 「Aisukuri-mu Fi-ba-」
Release Date: July 14th, 2023
Duration: 103 mins.
Director: Tetsuya Chihara
Writer: Masashi Shimizu (Screenplay), Mieko Kawakami (Original Story)
Starring: Riho Yoshioka, Serena Motola, Utaha, Marika Matsumoto, Yumi Adachi, KOM_I, MEGUMI, Momo,
Famous writer Mieko Kawakami’s original short story gets adapted for the screen and it has the former and current singer for Wednesday Campanella in the cast.
Synopsis: The titular ice cream fever finds it locus point at an ice cream shop where four particular female customers from different generations find their lives meeting.
Natsumi completed art college and scored a job at a design company but she gave it up to work in the ice cream parlour. It is there that she meets Saho, a shy writer who is a regular at the shop. Menawhile, a teen named Takako works part time at the shop and watches Natsumi with mixed emotions. Then there is Yuu, a woman who visits the store since it is in the neighbourhood of her estranged sibling’s house.
Shin Godzilla ORTHOchromatic 
シンゴジラ 「Shin Gojira」
Release Date: July 29th, 2016
Running Time: 120 mins.
Director: Hideaki Anno, Shinji Higuchi,
Writer: Hideaki Anno (Screenplay),
Starring: Hiroki Hasegawa, Satomi Ishihara, Kimiko Yo, Takumi Saito, Yutaka Takenouchi, Ren Osugi, Akira Emoto, Kengo Kora, Jun Kunimura, Pierre Taki, Ken Mitsuishi,
Arguably the best of the post-Showa Godzilla’s, this has been given ORTHOchromatic treatment that makes it, according to the festival site, “a type of monochrome characterized by starker contrasts and more pronounced blacks. The results are awe-inspiring and presents Shin Godzilla as never seen before.”
Which is, to my mind, a waste of the colours of the original, particularly the flames that Godzilla breathed out in its many different forms.
Synopsis: In present-day Japan, an unexplained seismic event occurs off the coast of Shinagawa, Tokyo, causing destructive effects that leave the government scrambling for a response. When videos of a giant lizard start emerging on the internet, it heralds the emergence of Godzilla and it falls upon cabinet secretary Rando Yaguchi to spearhead the government response with various agencies, all while the fire-breathing, building-stomping dinosaur heads into Tokyo.
彼方のうた 「Kanata no Uta 」
Release Date: January 05th, 2024
Duration: 84 mins.
Director: Kyoshi Sugita
Writer: Kyoshi Sugita (Screenplay),
Starring: An Ogawa, Yuko Nakamura, Hidekazu Mashima,
Website Twitter: @kyoshisugita IMDB
This work is the fourth feature directed by Kyoshi Sugita, following A Song I Remember, an absolute stunner of a drama, Follow the Light, and Haruhara-san’s Recorder. It is his first original film since A Song I Remember and it stars An Ogawa (A New Wind Blows, For Rei). This one played at the Busan International Film Festival 2023.
Synopsis: Spurred by feelings of grief over the mother she lost while in school, Haru, a 25-year-old woman who works as a bookstore clerk, watches over two older people. Takeshi, 45, and Yukiko, 40. They are troubled souls and all three embark on a journey. Haru takes along a cassette tape and recorder left behind by her mother and faces her own feelings for her mother and her grief as she spends time with the two.
チャチャ 「Cha-Cha」
Release Date: October 11th, 2024
Duration: 108 mins.
Director: Mai Sakai
Writer: Mai Sakai, Takamasa Oe (Screenplay),
Starring: Mariko Ito,
Website Twitter: @NotHeroineM
This is the latest film in the “(not) HEROINE” project, which focuses on up-and-coming actresses and next-generation directors to create films from unique perspectives and non-traditional, female-focused stories. Helming the project is Mai Sakai. Her last film was You Made My Dawn released back in September 2023. It features writing by Takamasa Oe and stars former Nogizaka46 idol Marika Ito.
Synopsis: Cha-Cha is a free-spirited artist who is in a relationship with Raku, a boy with increasingly questionable tastes. Behind “the whimsical colors of a romantic comedy are darker hues to be found in its deranged depths.”
Documentaries
Colourful Witch: Eiko Kadono’s Life From Where Stories Are Born 
カラフルな魔女 角野栄子の物語が生まれる暮らし 「Karafuru na Majou ~ Kadono Eiko no Monogatari ga Umareru Kurashi ~ 」
Release Date: January 26th, 2024
Duration: 96 mins.
Director: Marina Miyagawa
Writer: N/A
Starring: Eiko Kadono, Aoi Miyazaki (Narration),
Synopsis: A documentary that follows the daily life of Eiko Kadono, the Hans Christian Andersen Award-winning children’s book author famous for having written Majo no Takkyūbin over a period of four years. Her book would be adapted by Hayao Miyazaki into Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989).
Her life and the level of her determination sounds amazing considering she lost her mother at an early age, lived in different parts of the world, and more and she still keeps a happy colourful presence in the world.
The documentary is based on a program of the same title that was broadcast on NHK E-television.
SHUNGA: The Lost Japanese Erotica 
春の画 SHUNGA 「Haru no Ga SHUNGA」
Release Date: November 24th, 2023
Duration: 121 mins.
Director: Junko Hirata
Writer: N/A
Starring: Tadanori Yoko, Makoto Aida, Ryoko Kimura, Aki Ishigami, Monta Hayakawa, Yo Yoshida and Mirai Moriyama (Voice Overs),
Synopsis: This is a documentary about Shunga – pictures depicting sex and love – that flourished during the Edo period but was banned during the Meiji period because it was thought of as obscene. Director Junko Hirata travelled the length and breadth of Japan and even overseas to interview art collectors, ukiyo-e researchers, art historians, engravers, and painters and show off the works. There are also animated Shunga…
SHORTS