The 2024 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 05th to the 15th and they have announced their programme. This post will focus on films that were made in Japan and films with a Japanese connection.
ぼくのお日さま 「Boku no Ohisama」
Release Date: September 13th, 2024
Duration: 90 mins.
Director: Hiroshi Okuyama
Writer: Hiroshi Okuyama (Screenplay),
Starring: Keitatsu Kohiyama, Kiara Takanashi, Sosuke Ikematsu, Ryuya Wakaba, Maho Yamada, Yunho,
Website Twitter: @bokuno_ohisama IMDB
This one played at Cannes 2024 where it got favourable reviews.
So Hiroshi Okuyama directed the feature coming-of-age comedy Jesus (2018), which netted him Best New Director at San Sebastian, and won the praise of a lot of critics. Since then, he was involved in directing an episode of The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House (2023), a TV show on Netflix overseen by Hirokazu Kore-eda.
Okuyama becomes the youngest Japanese director to be selected for Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard section and this film, dedicated to figure skating, features two emerging talents in Keitatsu Kohiyama and Kiara Takanashi (a trained dancer) along with excellent support from veterans like Sosuke Ikematsu, Ryuya Wakaba, and Maho Yamada.
Apparently, this same-named song served as something of an inspiration for this, Okuyama’s commercial film debut.
Synopsis: Takuya and Sakura live in a snowbound town but are polar opposites in abilities as she is a talented and dedicated figure skater while he is hopeless on the ice, especially with his ice hockey skates fouling him up. Arakawa, a former figure skater who coaches Sakura, sees Takuya trying to mimic her moves and senses the boy has feelings for the girl so he supports Takuya by lending him figure skates and helping him practice until he can begin practicing with Sakura. As the two train together, a love blurs the relationship between the young skaters.
ザ・ゲスイドウズ 「Za Gesuidouzu」
Release Date: 2025
Duration: 93 mins.
Director: Kenichi Ugana
Writer: Kenichi Ugana (Screenplay),
Starring: Natsuko, Leo Imamura, Yutaka Kyan, Rocko Zevenbergen, Yuya Endo,
Website Twitter: IMDB
Kenichi Ugana (Visitors – Complete Edition) is fast rising in the film world following Extraneous Matter – Complete Edition at Nippon Connection a few years ago. His sci-fi/horror genre tales are perfect for genre festivals and this film, which comes out in 2025, plays at Midnight Madness at Toronto.
Synopsis: A misfit horror-themed rock band moves to the Japanese countryside to write the greatest punk anthem in the world.
The next two were programmed for Venice 2024.
クラウド 「Kuraudo」
Release Date: September 27th, 2024
Duration: 123 mins.
Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Writer: Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Screenplay),
Starring: Masaki Suda, Kotone Furukawa, Masataka Kubota, Daiken Okudaira, Amane Okayama, Yoshiyoshi Arakawa, Maho Yamada, Tetsuya Chiba, Yutaka Matsushige,
Website Twitter: @cloudmovie2024 IMDB
This is the third Kurosawa film to get a release this year following on from Chime and a remake of Serpent’s Path (which plays in September at San Sebastian). It features a great cast, including Yutaka Matsushige, the antagonist in Kuroawa’s The Guard From Underground.
Synopsis: Yoshii is a factory worker who makes a bit on the side by reselling goods, an occupation he learned from Muraoka, a senior student at a technical college he want to. The reselling business gets so good that he turns down a promotion at the factory and expands his business but just as things start to look good, suspicious events begin to occur around Yoshii and he becomes the target of hatred on the internet that turns into a collective madness and a “hunting game”.
Release Date: October 10th, 2024
Duration: 123 mins.
Director: Neo Sora
Writer: Neo Sora (Screenplay),
Starring: Yukito Hidaka, Hayato Kurihara, Makiko watanabe, Shiro Sano, Ayumu Nakajima, Kilala Inori, Shina Peng, Pushim,
Neo Sora has released a few documentaries about his father Ryuichi Sakamoto and one was at las year’s Venice Film Festival. This film will also be screened at the New York Film Festival.
Synopsis: The world is about to change. Kou and Yuta are rambunctious best friends who live in a near-future Tokyo where the threat of a catastrophic earthquake is ever present. Just before their high school graduation, they prank the principal of the school which leads him to install a surveillance system…
The next two films have a Japan connection, either in setting or filmmakers:
Winter in Sokcho / Hiver a Sokcho
Release Date: N/A
Duration: 82 mins.
Director: Koya Kamura
Writer: Koya Kamura, Stephane Ly-Cuong (Screenplay), Elisa Shua Dusapin (Original Novel)
Starring: Roschdy Zem, Bella Kim,
This one is based on an award-winning novel by French-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin. This review of the book makes it sound fascinating. Koya Kamura is a French-Japanese director who was born in Paris. Koya Kamura is a French-Japanese director who was born in Paris.
Synopsis: Winter has set in around the fishing town of Sokcho. The tourism trail has gone to sleep and the town is relatively close to the North Korean border, so people have extra reason to stay indoors. At a sleepy guesthouse is a woman of French-Korean descent who is has completed her university studies and is due to get married. Living with a certain diffidence, her life is unsatisfying but comes to life when a French graphic novelist looking for inspiration visits Sokcho. She acts as a guide for this man who is old enough to be her father and a tense, borderline romantic acquaintanceship ensues…
A Missing Part / Une Part Manquante
Release Date: N/A
Duration: 98 mins.
Director: Guillaume Senez
Writer: Guillaume Senez, Jean Denizot (Screenplay),
Starring: Romain Duris, Judith Chemla, Mei Cirne-Masuki,
This appears to be connected to the issue of foreign fathers separated from their kids once divorced. It stars Romain Duris, who was great in The Beat That My Heart Skipped (2005).
Synopsis: Belgium France co-production set in Tokyo that sees a father try to find his daughter in Tokyo after the family separated nine years prior. It is the day before he will travel back home to France when he travels in a taxi on a last search and his daughter hops in beside him, little realising that she is travelling with her father.
That’s it for now. I’ll update it if any other films are added and I may expand the info for a few more of the films.
Here is past coverage:
Toronto International Film Festival 2011
Toronto International Film Festival 2012
Toronto International Film Festival 2013
Toronto International Film Festival 2014
Toronto International Film Festival 2015
Toronto International Film Festival 2017
Toronto International Film Festival 2018
Toronto International Film Festival 2019
Toronto International Film Festival 2020
Toronto International Film Festival 2021