The 35th Tokyo Student Film Festival runs from August 16th to August 18th in Shibuya Eurolive. 17 films will be on offer plus a guest talk by Joe Odagiri where he will talk about his career and also discuss an episode of Jikou Keisatsu that he directed.
The films are split into three programmes, live-action features, animation, and live-action shorts. Films in each section are in competition and there are judges drawn from veteran filmmakers. Names include Kazuo Hara (Kazuo Hara films reviewed), Yukiko Mishima (Dear Etranger), and Rikiya Imaizumi (Over the Town) judging the live-action features and shorts while writer Shiika Okada and artist Ryoshi Okada judge the animation.
Here are details on the films with information pulled from the festival site. Click on the links to find out more about the films and filmmakers who have given comments on the background of their films (highly recommended!).
Live-Action Features
パパママ卒業 「Papa Mama Sotsugyo」
Release Date: 2024
Duration: 50 mins.
Director: Ruito Sugawara
Writer: N/A
Starring: Ruito Sugawara
Ruito Sugawara, of Saitama University, returned after appearing at the festival last year with E-Coli War.
Synopsis: What do you call your parents?
Ruito Sugawara made this self documentary as a 22-year-old. It is about his developing relationship with his parents, whom he refers to as his papa and mama at the outset, and his graduation to a more mature connection through the help of his social circle.
都会のリュウ 「Tokai no ryuu」
Release Date: 2023
Duration: 61 mins.
Director: Misaki Izumiya
Writer: Misaki Izumiya, Hiroshi Izumiya
Starring: Reiko Mitamura, Yuki Koshi, Nozomi Takano, Chika Hashizumi, Hikari Shinkai, Shiori Nukumi,
Izumiya originally studied about the Middle East and Island at Sophia University. This was when she started making short films and music videos during this period film.
Her reason for making the film is as a way to respond to the assassination of Shinzo Abe, specifically looking at the idea of the background behind the crime and the path that leads a person to commit a crime which is something social structures and media obscure.
Synopsis: Even love was a misunderstanding.
A student named Natsu passes Ryu on a stepstreet on her way to class and is attracted to him. She gets involved in his search for someone but then Ryu disappears. Natsu investigates…
オキシトシン 「Okishitoshin」
Release Date: 2023
Duration: 54 mins.
Director: Kouki Maeda
Writer: Kouki Maeda (Screenplay),
Starring: Ryotaro Komatsu, Mayu Tanno, Kei Nakafuji, Midori Sangoumi,
Maeda studied at Rikkyo University, Faculty of Letters and also studied filmmaking at the Film School of Tokyo. He is currently at the Graduate School of Film and New Media, Tokyo University of the Arts.
Synopsis: Kentaro suffers from “contact phobia,” a condition that makes him unable to touch another person’s body. He has devoted his time to writing about his friend and his friend’s girlfriend, Hitomi. When she reads the novel, she becomes interested in Kentaro and tries to cure his contact phobia.
分離の予感 「Bunri no yokan」
Release Date: 2023
Duration: 64 mins.
Director: He Ying-jie
Writer: He Ying-jie (Screenplay),
Starring: Tsukuma Moruku, Kozue Ito, Yuyu Fuji, Mahiro Era,
He Ying-jie is originally from China and is currently at Musashino art University where he has directed two short films. This is his debut feature. His inspirations are Abbas Kairostami and Ryusuke Hamaguchi and an interest in formalism and showing how cameras and actors work by having different documentary-layer like moments.
Synopsis: Two actors who meet at an audition play lovers who are set to marry in the script but then the director asks them to improvise and fiction and reality overlap as they alter the fictional couple’s relationship.
Release Date: 2024
Duration: 98 mins.
Director: Yuta Kaneko
Writer: N/A
Starring: Hiroyuki Shoji,
Kaneko is currently a fourth year student at Aoyama Gakuin University’s Department of Physics and Mathematics. His debut film Bloodletting (2022) won the Cinema Fan Award at the 44th Pia Film Festival (link).
Synopsis: A man who works as a moderator for a social media site becomes mentally ill due to the harmful content he sees and attempts suicide. He survives and, six months later, participates in an experiment conducted by three academics.
Animation
Release Date: 2024
Duration: 6 mins.
Director: Sota Fukushima
Writer: N/A
Starring: N/A
Fukushima is a Tama Art University student who works on music videos and commercials using digital animation techniques where he uses unique colour scheme with high colour saturation. He is interested in folklore and indigenous culture.
Synopsis: A love-hate drama between an aboriginal girl and a man from the “civilised” world who slowly get to know each other and possibly fall in love before he becomes interested in a stone on the island that “emits light that ages living things,” and betrays the girl’s adoration.
私は、私と、私が、私を、 「Watashi wa, watashi to, watashi ga, watashi wo」
Release Date: 2024
Duration: 7 mins.
Director: Rina Itou
Writer: N/A
Starring: Chisato Nakai (Narration)
Ito graduated from Tokyo Zokei University in 2024 with a degree in Animation. During her time there, she mainly produced self-documentary films. She us currently working freelance. Her story is about the gap in perception between what people think others feel and what those other people truly feel and plastic surgery is a medium for getting to the crux of the issue.
Synopsis: One day, “I” suddenly find myself transformed into something strange. I” repeatedly try to peel off my skin and return to my original form, but it doesn’t work.
サバ人間 「Saba Ningen」
Release Date: 2024
Duration: 17 mins.
Director: Rintaro Uekawa
Writer: Rintaro Uekawa (Screenplay)
Starring: N/A
Uekawa comes from Kobe Design University and has made a grip of award-winning/special mention films. This film is a daydream-like drama involving the exchange of letters and packages and it has been influenced by Hong Kong noir.
Synopsis: Momo is a postal workers and on her route is Saba-man, a guy with a human body and a mackerel’s head. Whenever she delivers a package to Saba-man’s house, she receives a letter. One day, Momo discovers Saba-man setting up an ice cream stall…
にわとりはじめてとやにつく 「Niwatori Hajimete to ya nitsu ku」
Release Date: 2024
Duration: 15 mins.
Director: Yuri Kurihara
Writer: N/A
Starring: Shotaro Sanada, Anri Wakai, Sho Ikeda, Riito Shimata,
Kurihara graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts at Tokyo University of the Arts and entered the university’s graduate school where she is currently researching “the creation and use of stories for problem-solving purposes.”
The film was inspired the sense of time being paused and wasted during the Covid-19 pandemic. The emphasis of the budget went on sound and music to enhance the film’s cinematic expression.
Synopsis: In the year 200x, a man and a girl meet in a world where life is an indefinite punishment for an unknown disaster. No creature will be born and no creature will die. What is the meaning of human life in such a world?
芋虫 「Imomushi」
Release Date: 2024
Duration: 12 mins.
Director: Minori Fujita
Writer: Minori Fujita (Screenplay),
Starring: Minori Fujita
Fujita specialised in oil painting while at high school and then became interested in animation and so joined Kyoto Seika University. His travels have taken him to journey but he returned to Japan and is based in Tokyo.
Fujita’s film is a take on the classic nightmarish Edogawa Rampo tale “The Caterpillar.”
Synopsis: Lieutenant Sunaga made his name as a war hero but lost all four limbs, his voice, and hearing in the war and has been reduced to nothing but a head and torso. He is taken care of by his wife Tokiko in a small cottage far away from others…
Live-Action Shorts
Release Date: 2023
Duration: 2 mins.5
Director: Yuki Kawashima
Writer: N/A
Starring: Jonathan Reyes, Jacquiline Mercado, Kiwie Kondo, Mai Perez, Yada,
Kawashima grew up with drawing and painting in oil before changing to film and entering the film department at Musashino Art University. She became interested in documentary filmmaking after a lecture by Arata Oshima, the son of Nagisa Oshima and a political documentarist.
She made this film after a trip to the Philippines to see her grandmother-in-law. While travelling, she passed by the area in the film, a place she was warned to stay away from due to its poverty. She felt she could not simply pass by and decided to film what she saw and her reaction to it.
Synopsis: Kawashima visited what is said to be the largest slum in Southeast Asia, which lies a 20 minute drive from Tondo, the Philippines. Alongside dialogue with her Filipino grandmother-in-law, she explores the reality of the place.
ザ映画ウーマン 「Za Eiga U-man」
Release Date: 2024
Duration: 43 mins.
Director: Duan Hao
Writer: N/A
Starring: N/A
Duan Hao comes from Beijing and is a graduate from Musashino Art University’s Department of Imaging Arts and Sciences.
This is a black comedy about the main character struggling to find a “higher existence” in life, whether that is in friends, film, God, or a movie woman, through various encounters.
Synopsis: Two brothers who are pursuing the dream of making a low-budget film meet a thief who was wanted by their producer, and mistake her for the “Movie Woman,” the protagonist of their screenplay.
Release Date: 2023
Duration: 8 mins.
Director: Rintaro Nagayama
Writer: N/A
Starring: N/A
Daigon studied filmmaking at the Film School of Tokyo College of Photography Iunareba, Tasogare is his debut.
Nagayama is a graduate of Tokyo College of Photography.
This film started life as a video assignment for a class and the theme given was “finding a story from a place.” His approach? Filming people “walking,” which he says is cinematic and exciting.
Synopsis: Walk, walk, walk.
Release Date: 2024
Duration: 41 mins.
Director: Harue Chan
Writer: Harue Chan (Screenplay),
Starring: N/A
Chan majored in TV & Radio Direction at the Media Department of Nanjing Academy of Arts and graduated in June 2020. This was followed by doing the Film & Photography Course at Musashino Art University’s Graduate School of Conceptual Design.
Harue Chan is a writer, director, cinematographer, editor and more and it looks like the producer of the above film, Find the Film Woman. The goal for Chan’s film was to portray a “pure love” story between two lonely people, all expressed in a sexy and erotic atmosphere during a sultry summer.
Synopsis: Ryusaka is about to graduate from high school and it’s his last summer as a student. Still a virgin, he approaches a sex worker but, not being in the mood for sex, he spends time with her and go on a date at a cinema.
翔のいた夏 「Kakeru no ita natsu」
Release Date: 2023
Duration: 21 mins.
Director: Junnosuke Mashima
Writer: N/A
Starring: N/A
Mashima attended Tokyo Metropolitan Senior High School of Fine Arts after doing a children’s film class in junior high school and it might be the same work as one that appeared at Tokyo International Film Festival 2019’s Teens Meet Cinema programme.
Mashima’s summertime film eschews the heat and sultriness for the stillness and coolness.
Synopsis: Akira is staying at his friend Sho’s house for four days over the summer, like he usually does, but this time, on the third day when they are in a forest, Sho disappears.
とあるふたり 「Toaru futari」
Release Date: 2023
Duration: 19 mins.
Director: Suzuka Yagi
Writer: Suzuka Yagi (Screenplay),
Starring: N/A
Having been inspired to make indie films since high school, Yagi attended and graduate from Nihon University College of Art. She has worked as an assistant director on an indie film and written, directed, and edited her own films as well as being an art director for a music video.
Her film is all about working through a sad event.
Synopsis: A shy fourth grader named Wataru studies Shogi with a teacher named Hideki to get closer to the girl he likes. Surrounding them is a mysterious music group, an old guy at a factory and… A special event in their small town.
So this is what it feels like.
Release Date: 2024
Duration: 24 mins.
Director: Yuan Shuohan
Writer: N/A
Starring: N/A
Originally from China, Yuan Shuohan attended the Graduate School of Film and New Media, Tokyo University of the Arts and has chosen to explore what looks to be themes of globalisation, urbanisation, and alienation in her work.
She has extensive experience working as production staff and editor/director on short films, features, and documentaries.
Synopsis: The film is based on events Yuan Shuohan experienced when she became a working adult and travelled, ranging from chance encounters to feelings of anxiety over meeting the unexpected. Through exploring these things, she stimulates the audience consider questions based on gender, nationality and how she connects to others.
Here is past coverage of the event:
Tokyo Student Film Festival 2023
Tokyo Student Film Festival 2022