The 2024 edition of the Rotterdam International Film Festival will take place from January 30th to February 09th. There’s a varied selection of Japanese films and also a talk with Takashi Miike and his producer Misako Saka and a Q&A with Toshiaki Toyoda.
Below is a list of Japanese features and shorts that have been programmed:
Features
Big Screen Competition
ゆきてかへらぬ 「Yuki teka heranu」
Release Date: February 21st, 2025
Duration: 128 mins.
Director: Kichitaro Negishi
Writer: Yozo Tanaka (Screenplay),
Starring: Suzu Hirose, Taisei Kido, Masaki Okada, Shunsuke Tanaka, Kumi Takiuchi, Shinsuke Kato, Tasuu Emoto,
Website Twitter: @yk_movie2025 JFDB IMDB
This is set in Kyoto and Tokyo during the Taisho era (1912-1926) and depicts a real-life love triangle in which famed poet Chuuya Nakahara was involved in. This is pitched as being akin to a Merchant Ivory production, so expect refinement and restrained passions amidst lovely historical settings and costuming.
It is helmed by Kichitaro Negishi, a director who started out in Roman Porno and built a formidable reputation in the genre and in the mainstream, with Detective Story (1983) and Villon’s Wife (2009) being held in high regard. He was also involved the Director’s Company, which saw the support of top talent like Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Toshiharu Ikeda, and Shinji Somai in the 80s.
This film was written by Yozo Tanaka, a storied screenwriter who, like Negishi, started out in Roman Porno, but branched out to work with major talents on a long list of award-winning and classic films:
Seijun Suzuki – Zigeunerweisen (1980) Kagero-za (1981) Yumeji (1991)
Shinji Somai – Sailor Suit and Machine Gun (1981) The Catch (1983) Luminous Woman (1987) The Friends (1994)
Yoichi Sai – Woman in Black (1987)
He also worked on Villon’s Wife.
Synopsis: The film depicts an episode from the early life Chuuya Nakahara, a pioneer of modernist poetry who died at the age of 30. He fell in love with aspiring actor Yasuko Hasegawa when the two met in Kyoto. She was 20 and he was 17 and the two were both pretentious. Their relationship fired Nakahara’s creativity and the two moved to Tokyo. This puts them in the orbit of the respected critic Hideo Kobayashi, an admirer of Nakahara’s talent and a visitor to their home. Initially upset by Kobayashi’s presence, Hasegawa begins to feel lonely but she soon comes to the attention of the critic and a love triangle forms…
Release Date: 2025
Duration: 96 mins.
Director: Miwako Van Weyenberg
Writer: Miwako Van Weyenberg (Screenplay),
Starring: Lill Berteloot, Geert Van Rampelberg, Masako Tomita, Kaito Defoort, Sara Hamasaki, Lauren Muller, Elodie Barthels,
This looks to be the debut feature of Belgian-Japanese director Miwako Van Weyenberg. Called Soft Leaves, it looks like a spin on her 2014 short Hitorikko in which a child discovers that their estranged parent has a second family.
Synopsis: 11-year-old Yuna has lived with her Belgian father ever since her Japanese mother divorced him and returned to Japan. When he is hospitalised following a serious accident, her estranged mother returns to her life and brings a half-sister along. It’s initially a little overwhelming for Yuna as she must reckon with the cultural and familial distance, but it is also a chance for rediscoveries of connection.
Harbour
Operation Undead, directed by Kongkiat Komesiri, is a counter-factual WWII horror movie in which Thai soldiers and civilians must team up with their Japanese invaders to prevent the spread of a zombie invasion – Japan’s secret weapon. Turns out the zombies have emotions in this take on zed-heads.
Toshiaki Toyoda will be present at Rotterdam for the first set of screenings, so make sure you are there!
次元を超える 「Jigen o koeru」
Release Date: 2025
Duration: 96 mins.
Director: Toshiaki Toyoda
Writer: Toshiaki Toyoda (Screenplay),
Starring: Yosuke Kubozuka, Ryuhei Matsuda, Chihara Jr., Haruka Imou, Masahiro Higashide, Kiyohiko Shibukawa,
Toshiaki Toyoda is a nonconformist director interested who has gone from making youth crime films like Pornostar (1999) and Blue Spring (2001) to more considered dramas like 9 Souls (2003) to furious state-of-the-nation addresses addressing corruption and social malaise in stories which take in spiritual dimensions with shugendo ascetic monks. He’s going beyond the boundaries of earth with this one – intergalactic, even.
This looks like a continuation of his “Resurrection Trilogy” as that same ascetic monk and the motif of wolves reappear. It consists of four short films mixing science fiction elements and protagonists in the pursuit of truth.
Synopsis: A monk named Rosuke has gone missing and seems to be under the spell of Master Hanzo, a powerful ascetic who believes in the resurrection of wolves and demands a finger in return for helping followers transcend onto a new dimension. Rosuke’s lover, Nonoka, hires an assassin named Shinno to accompany her to a Hanzo’s mountain monastery to find him. There, they meet a sorcerer called Ajari. Meanwhile, Rosuke is on a spaceship heading to the unknown planet named Kelman. There, he meets a strange old man. And then… A battle of sorcery between Rosuke, Shinno, and Ajari begins.
みーんな、宇宙人。 「Mi-nna, Uchuujin.」
Release Date: June 07th, 2024
Duration: 93 mins.
Director: Ken’ichi Ugana
Writer: Ken’ichi Ugana (Screenplay),
Starring: Katsumi Hyodo, Hina Kikuchi, Hirobumi Watanabe, YU, Mihara Ui, Takuya Kusakawa, Sho Nishigaki, Akaji Maro, Shiho,
Website Twitter: @moja_pjt
Synopsis: Ken’ichi Ugana (Visitors) has made an omnibus film original work produced to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the fashion and culture magazine “NYLON JAPAN. The stories concern aliens, these fuzzy green things, who have come to exterminate the human race, and the people who encounter them and how humans and aliens get to know each other.
LIMELIGHT SECTION
Takashi Miike will also be taking part in a talk with Misako Saka, producer of Miike’s post-90s works As the Gods Will, First Love, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable, and special effects work big-name anime adaptations of Yokai Watch and Pokemon as well as Shinya Tsukamoto’s Gemini
BLUE FIGHT 蒼き若者たちのブレイキングダウン 「BLUE FIGHT Aoki Wakamono-tachi no burikingu daun」
Release Date: January 31st, 2025
Duration: 119 mins.
Director: Takashi Miike
Writer: Shin Kibayashi (Screenplay), Mikuru Asakura (Autobiography),
Starring: Danhi Kinoshita, Kaname Yoshizawa, Mariko Shinoda, Anna Tsuchiya, Susume Terajima, GACKT,
Website Twitter: @yoakef_jp JFDB IMDB
Mikuru Asakura is a former MMA fighter turned media personality, it seems, as he established the “Breaking Down” martial arts series where fighters enter a ring and have one minute to defeat each other. He has stepped up to produce this film which is partly based on his autobiography. Takashi Miike is the director and this type of story is totally in his wheelhouse since he’s done the Crows series of juvenile fighters battling each other.
Lead actors Danhi Kinoshita and Kaname Yoshizawa beat 2000 people at audition to get their roles.
Synopsis: Ikuto and Ryoma meet in juvenile detention and become fast friends. Both are determined to redeem themselves in the eyes of society and, inspired by one of Asakura’s motivational speeches, they resolve to fight in the Breaking Down combat event where they will enter a ring and fight an opponent for a minute. The appearance of a rival who shares history with the two plunges them info a feud…
海の沈黙 「Umi no chinmoku」
Release Date: November 22nd, 2024
Duration: 112 mins.
Director: Setsuro Wakamatsu
Writer: So Kuramoto (Screenplay),
Starring: Masahiro Motoki, Kyoko Koizumi, Kiichi Nakai, Shiro Sano, Mika Mifune, Misa Shimizu,
Website Twitter: @uminochinmoku IMDB
Synopsis: An exhibition for world-renowned painter Shuzo Tamura turns into a media firestorm when one of the works is revealed to be fake. The drama ramps up when a woman’s dead body is found in Otaru, Hokkaido, and a man named Ryuji Tsuyama, someone once known as a genius painter before he went into hiding, is thought to be connected. Anna Tamura was once Ryuji Tsuyama’s lover and is now married to Tamura. She travels to Otaru and discovers that Ryuji is surrounded by people with competing agendas…
Focus: Hold Video in Your Hands
Who has VHSs? I still have them! Do I use watch? No!
But(!) they have films like Evil Dead II, anime like Excel Saga, and documentaries and episodes of The X-Files and other stuff like Japanorama and Adam and Joe Go Tokyo so I might as well keep them to remind me of the 90s and early 2000s.
There’s an entire strand to the festival dedicated to the power of VHS and there are two Japanese entries.
無残絵: AVギャル殺人ビデオは存在した！ 「Muzan-E: AV Gyaru satsujin bideo wa sonzaishita」
Release Date: 1999
Duration: 65 mins.
Director: Daisuke Yamanouchi
Writer: Daisuke Yamanouchi (Screenplay),
Starring: Yuki Emoto, Naohi Hirakawa, Ken’ichi Kanbe, Shigeki Kato, Hiroshi Kitasenju, Yuri Ochiai, Tsuyoshi Okuno, Salmon sakeyama,
Snuff videos of legend were under the counter VHSs or copies of copies that were secretly shared amongst an underground and watched alone, or something along those lines. Watch the horror film Censor to get an idea of what I’m talking about.
Taking advantage of that set-up was AV director Daisuke Yamanouchi who made this DTV horror film which has some… explicit scenes… and… a nasty twist.
Bravo on the festival writer for being vague because you might get walk outs on this one. The festival page also talks up the film showing VHS stores of the day so there’s that if you ever have to defend yourself watching this.
Synopsis: A female journalist and her team investigate the AV industry for a lead on a snuff video where an AV actress is murdered but then events take a terrifying turn…
Dawn of a New Day: The Man Behind VHS 
陽はまた昇る 「Hi wa mata noboru」
Release Date: June 15th, 2002
Duration: 108 mins.
Director: Kiyoshi Sasabe
Writer: Takuya Nishioka, Kiyoshi Sasabe (Screenplay), Masaaki Sato (Original Work),
Starring: Toshiyuki Nishida, Kyoko Maya, Ken Watanabe, Naoto Ogata, Ryoko Shinohara, Mitsuko Baisho, Renji Ishibashi, Jun Kunimura, Tatsuya Nakadai,
Tragically, lead actor Toshiyuki Nishida passed away last year but this film is kind of well known. This is based on Masaaki Sato’s nonfiction book but it has names and dates changed, it seems.
It was nominated for big titles at the 2003 Japan Academy Awards – Best Picture Award, Best Leading Actor, Best Supporting Actor Award, and Best Music Award but that was the year The Twilight Samurai swept the board.
Synopsis: JVC (Japan Victor Company) had been a leading consumer electronics manufacturer since the mid-1950s but by the early 1970s, it had fallen behind Sony. Shizuo Kagatani is transferred to JVC’s Yokohama factory and told to make cuts but he decides to work on increasing sales and perfecting a trial model VHS. It’s a race against time as Sony have similar plans and the Ministry of International Trade and Industry are looking at the format…
Focus: Through Cinema We Shall Rise
Last year’s Rotterdam had Satsuo Yamamoto’s 1966 film The Great White Tower / Ivory Tower programmed and this year’s one features an earlier title.
荷車の歌 「Niguruma no Uta」
Release Date: February 11th, 1959
Duration: 145 mins.
Director: Satsuo Yamamoto
Writer: Yoshitaka Yoda (Screenplay), Tomoe Yamashiro (Original Novel)
Starring: Yuko Mochizuki, Rentaro Mikuni, Teruko Kishi, Sachiko Hidari, Ko Nishimura,
Satsuo Yamamoto was a left-wing filmmaker who depicted the brutality of the Japanese military and capital and also depicted corruption in society.
This work is based on a novel by Tomoe Yamashiro, also a leftist as someone who advocated for improved workers conditions and was arrested, alongside her husband, by Japanese authorities and imprisoned for the duration of the war and suffered torture at the hands of authorities. After the war, she became involved in agrarianism and anti-nuclear activities after the war. This film was funded with the help of Japan’s National Association of Women Farmers and produced by the National Rural Film Association.
It was adapted on the page by Yoshitaka Yoda, writer on the incredible films Osaka Elegy 1936, Ugetsu (1953), Sansho the Bailiff (1954).
This is a highly-regarded movie that received awards for Best and Best Film Score (Hikaru Hayashi) at the 1960 Mainichi Film Awards and it was placed at #4 on Kinema Junpo magazine’s list of the 10 best Japanese films of the year in 1959.
Synopsis: We follow 50 years in the life of Seki, a housemaid who lives in a village deep in the mountains of Hiroshima Prefecture. Starting in 1894, we see that she marries Moichi, an educated postman who will quit his job and purchase a wooden cart to transport goods for money with which he will get a warehouse. His widowed mother and Seki’s parents don’t accept their decision and so their lives are difficult even though Seki joins her husband in pulling carts for miles at a time. Then they have to work alongside the railways and other developments, personal and political. All of this happens while Seki raises five children…
Shorts
チューリップちゃん 「Chu-rippu chan」
Release Date:
Duration: 18 mins.
Director: Saki Watanabe
Writer: Saki Watanabe (Screenplay),
Starring: Heidi Sato, Ai Izaki, Rinka Yamazaki, Yuki Fujisawa, Yasuka Kurita, Haruk Kubota,
This was the graduation project of Saki Watanabe for her Film and Media degree at Tohoku University of Art and Design. She wrote the screenplay and did the animation and editing, and music, which is an incredible feat so she must be proud. It played at Skip City 2024.
Synopsis: When elementary school girl Tulip-chan is asked what she dreams for her future self to have, she states grandchildren to celebrate her sixtieth birthday. This answer probably comes from the fact that she has trouble fitting in and, recently, her own grandmother passed away and her family life has become somewhat turbulent. One day, another girl comes up to her and announces that she is her child, come from the future. Will Tulip-chan’s dream come true?
A Monster with Its Mouth Agape (Dir: Steven McInerney, 2024, 10 mins.)
This one is a UK short inspired by Butoh and is supposed to capture the “unsettling and chaotic climate of post-war Japan” and feature rare audio of Butoh master Yoshito Ohno.
Lil’ Tokyo Story (Dir: Matthew Lax, 2016, 4 mins.)
A shot-for-shot reimagining of the opening credits and climax of Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Story (1953) but shot in Los Angeles and with two actors in drag and a look at how the Japanese and English dialogue/translations can be re-interpreted.
Furyu (Dir: Kiyoshi Awazu, 1972, 11 mins.)
This one is an experimental short shot on 16mm film and is dedicated to “the ephemeral beauty of interplaying light and shadow” as it captures the eerie shapes and shadows of trees swaying against the wind, caught on the walls of a white house, with an evolving soundscape of oral vibrat and piercing instrumental pitches.
Here’s a previous coverage stretching back over a decade!