2025 marks the 20th edition of Osaka Asian Film Festival (OAFF) and it will be held from March 14 to 23.
There are 67 feature and short films programmed. These films will be screened at venues in Osaka City, including ABC Hall, Theatre Umeda, T-Joy Umeda and Nakanoshima Museum of Art.
For viewers curious about Asian films, OAFF proves to be the place to be. This edition covers Japan to Kazakhstan, South Korea and Taiwan, to Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Vietnam. Throw in plenty from Hong Kong and Thailand, Philippines and the Chinese mainland, and it’s safe to say that there’s a veritable feast at hand.
I had the privilege of being on writing duties again and so I have watched everything. I’m going to give a brief run-down of the programme, complete with links and images.
This is essentially me using the press releases to describe the fest. Films are found in multiple sections – for example, Little Dazzled Eyes is in the Spotlight Section and the Special Focus on Hong Kong 2025. So, click on the links to find out more about the films and trailers.
Let’s go!
The Kazakh musical Soldier of Love will be the Special Opening Film and the Closing Film is I Am Kirishima, Banmei Takahashi’s biopic of the same-named man, a member of the East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front who became a fugitive from the law for over five decades.
Competition
There are 13 titles competing for OAFF 2025’s Grand Prix and nearly all have accrued festival and awards buzz. There are also many filmmakers returning to Osaka.
Amongst the filmmakers taking a bow once again are Hwang In-won (Flavor of Sisterhood, OAFF 2024) with her feature film debut Journey to Face Them, a subtle portrait of the insidious effects of sexual assault as experienced by an aspiring writer, and Park Ri-woong (The Girl on a Bulldozer, OAFF 2023) with The Land of Morning Calm, a tale of a grizzled captain involved in an insurance scam in a declining port town, which won the New Currents Award, KB New Currents Audience Award, and NETPAC Award at the Busan International Film Festival 2024.
Taiwanese director Tom Lin Shu-yu, whose film The Garden of Evening Mists was the Opening Film for OAFF 2020, brings Yen and Ai-Lee, a story of a daughter and mother overcoming shared painful history which features a gripping dual-role performance by Kimi Hsia and support from Yang Kuei-mei, who took Best Supporting Actress at the Golden Horse Awards 2024 for her portrayal of the mother. He is joined by compatriot Pan Ke-yin, whose shorts My Sister and Daddy-to-Be have played at OAFF in the past. Pan returns with his latest work, the beautifully-shot Family Matters which has its world premiere at the festival. In his debut feature, he expands the world of My Sister along with the cast, who also return to their original roles, for another heartfelt story of family bonds in rural Taiwan.
Silent City Driver, winner of the Grand Prix at Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival 2024, is the latest from Sengedorj Janchivdorj whose drama comedy The Sales Girl won the Best Actress award at OAFF 2022. Described as a dark fairy tale, its story of a traumatised ex-prisoner seeking redemption on the streets of the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar features many surreal twists. On a lighter note is Vu Ngoc Dang (Sister Sister 2 (OAFF 2023)) and his drama comedy The Trophy Bride where a family of swindlers in Saigon seek to marry into a rich family. The film has exuberant acting and directing rich with melodrama, romance, and sad scenes to make for an entertaining time.
Coming straight from Hong Kong is Adam Wong who follows his films The Way We Dance (2013, OAFF 2014), She Remembers, He Forgets (2015, OAFF 2016), and The Way We Keep Dancing (2021, OAFF 2021) with another film about self-expression, The Way We Talk. A drama about a trio of deaf Hong Kongers seeking to integrate into society, its leading lady Chung Suet-Ying won Best Leading Actress at the Golden Horse Awards 2024. He is joined by Jill Leung whose Last Song For You sees a washed-up Cantopop singer go on a journey of mourning for an unrequited love. A romance with a tinge of the supernatural, it was shot in Hong Kong and Japan and stars veteran singer and actor Ekin Cheng and Ian Chan of the group MIRROR.
New to the festival is Assel Aushakimova who brings Bikechess, which won Best International Narrative Feature at Tribeca Film Festival 2024. Her film offers a political satire and subtle critique of conformism in Kazakhstan as a state media reporter covers inane happenings while her lesbian activist sister roils society. Veteran screenwriter Hup Xin (Kung Fu Hustle (2014)), makes her directorial debut with Bound in Heaven which takes place in rural and urban China as a rich woman stuck in an abusive relationship finds true love with a terminally-ill man and flees her old life to be with him. Bangladeshi film Saba is another directorial debut, this one from Maksud Hossain who depicts the difficult bond between a sick mother and her daughter who struggles to look after her. Flat Girls sees Thai director Jiratsaya Wongsutin also make her feature film debut, for which she revisits her memories of the place she grew up in to depict a love story taking place in an apartment complex housing police families. Marking its world premiere is Yoyogi Johnny from Satoshi Kimura. He delivers one of his trademark romantic ensemble comedies wherein the titular Johnny finds his life changes due to the presence of six different girls on the high school squash court and off it.
Spotlight
The films in this section highlight new talent as well as trends emerging across Asia.
The features are:
404 Still Remain from Uhm Ha-neul, Bel Ami from Geng Jun, and Julian Chou’s Blind Love both take place in the recent past and both tackle the prejudice against sexual minorities, the former in the form of a visually resplendent recreation of Korea in the year 2001 as a shy teen and the class president bond over a shared love of Japanese pop-culture, while the latter is set in Taipei sometime before the legalisation of gay marriage and finds the unhappily married matriarch of a medical family coming apart under the stifling need for social conformity. Black comedy Bel Ami is a contemporary story where people seek their identity through sexuality. Set in Northeast China and shot in black and white, Geng Jun’s film took Best Leading Actor, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, and the Audience Choice Award at the Taipei Golden Horse Awards 2024.
Village Rockstars 2 sees Rima DAS (Bulbul Can Sing (2018, OAFF 2019), Tora’s Husband (2022, OAFF 2023)) return to Dhunu’s story seven years after the first film and shows how the now-teenage girl with guitar navigates the landscape of her Assamese village and its surroundings with her fellow bandmates as she matures.
Two titles from the Philippines look at foreign connections as And the Breadwinner is…, from Jun Robles Lana (Big Night (2021, OAFF 2022)), utilises comedy-superstar Vice Ganda’s bigger-than-life personality for a comedy drama celebrating the breadwinners of families in a tale of an Overseas Filipino Worker returning home to help her family out of debt. For Jaime Pacena II, he uses his decades-long artistic journeys across Japan for This Place, a drama starring Gabby Padilla as an anthropologist who travels to Rikuzentakata in Iwate Prefecture to attend her estranged father’s funeral, which is where she meets her half-sister. In this beautifully-shot film, feelings of resentment and grief are navigated in the post-3/11 landscape as the two women come to terms with their situation through art and emotional support.
The short films for this section include:
Three from Korea with Ahn Jung-min’s moody early 2000s-vibes drama Suzuki and Lim Ji-sun’s comic Hansel: Two School Skirts offering two takes on coming-of age tales while Jeong Ki-yeon’s Scary Self-Driving is a secretly serious but mostly side-splittingly funny satire of the corporate world’s push for automation, as seen through a lively family comedy.
Two from China with Zhong Xiaoyi’s Boxing Day offering a slice of dreamy romanticism set in a Chinese hospital as a nurse goes about her duties in her own oddball way while listening to how a favourite patient fares in boxing match; Spring 23, from Wang Zhiyi, is a poignant semi-travelogue set in Shaoyang County as a man seeks out restricted fireworks for the Spring festival in the aftermath of both the Covid pandemic and his parent’s funeral.
One from Vietnam with Rooftop Lempicka, a Ho Chi Minh-set tale of a 10-year-old girl’s exploration of her burgeoning adolescence, comes from Nguyen Luong Hang (Supermarket Affairs, OAFF 2023. Issues of gender strictures in Indonesia are touched upon in In the Name of Love I Will Punish You, Exsell Rabbani’s satire of gender stereotypes by way of Sailor Moon battling quack gay-conversion therapy, and Mickey Lai’s military academy-set WAShhh, which lays bare the ethnic fault-lines in Malaysian society as well as offering a glimpse at gender solidarity as a group of female trainees are forced to wash sanitary pads.
Indie Forum
The Indie Forum section aims to show innovative and challenging films and new talent, and that applies to both in front of and behind the camera.
The JAPAN CUTS AWARD will be bestowed by the Japan Society to one Japanese film selected from this section and the recipient will have their film screened in New York later this year.
Amidst the many World Premieres, there’s a trio of talented new directors whose latest works need to be introduced to the wider world.
Megumi Okawara’s So Beautiful, Wonderful, and Lovely is an offbeat romance movie of a woman overcoming heartbreak with the help of talking castella cake. It sounds strange but makes total sense in the gently funny and slightly surreal ode to living for love as writer/director Okawara herself takes on the lead role.
Asuna Yanagi, famous for her role as the cruel manager Himuro in Hirobumi Watanabe’s Techno Brothers (2023), makes her directorial debut with Rainy Blue, a sensitive coming-of-age story set in Yanagi’s hometown of Tamana, Kumamoto Prefecture. Based on her own experiences it features a high schooler who discovers a tattered script in the film club who imagines it is connected to legendary actor and Yasujiro Ozu collaborator Chishu Ryu, another native of Tamana. Appearing in the film are Kengo Kora and Runa Nakajima, who are also from Kumamoto, as well as Chishu Ryu’s grandson, Kenzo Ryu.
The Outsiders’ Club, from Hami Nishizaki, won the Kinemeister Award at the 18th Tanabe Benkei Film Festival for its story of socially insecure misanthropes meeting together on a university campus under the gaze of mysterious student Kinuko Sakata. Starring Shuichi Kawanobe, director of Our House Party (OAFF 2022, interview), this film was made by students at the Film School of Tokyo.
Experienced director Akihiro Toda (The Name (2017, OAFF 2018) and Ichiko (2023) ) tackles the difficulties of welfare system with the 46-minute drama Soyoko, which features Mei Furusawa, an actress in the making who takes on a difficult leading role as the title character, a 19-year-old with ADHD and a disabled father (played by Hidemasa Masa, winner of the Best Actor award at OAFF 2020 for his role in KONTORA (OAFF 2020, director interview). Shin Adachi (100 Yen Love, A Beloved Wife) offers Good Luck, a Before Sunrise (1995)-style walk-and-talk time where an aspiring (but hopeless) director rambles around Beppu in the presence of a free-spirited actress.
Industry veterans come in the form of Emiko Hiramatsu, the regular writer and assistant director of Yoji Yamada on titles like The Twilight Samurai (2002) and The Little House (2014). After helming a number of movies across Japan herself, she heads back to her hometown for a youth-oriented story called The Tales of Kurashiki. Nobuyoshi Nishida, a film scholar, writer, and veteran producer, will screen See You Again, a story about a manga artist from Tokyo who heads to Kyoto and takes part in her elderly father’s physical rehabilitation after a fall. The film stars Ayaka Onishi from OAFF 2019 opening film Randen (2019, film interview) and Shinsuke Kato from Jeux de plage (OAFF 2019) and veteran actors Hiroko Nakajima, Ryosei Tayama and the totally amazing Mariko Tsutsui (Ripples).
V. MARIA, the latest feature by Daisuke Miyazaki, an OAFF regular filmmaker known for Tourism (OAFF 2018, interview), VIDEOPHOBIA (OAFF 2020, interview), North Shinjuku 2055 (OAFF 2022, interview), and #mito, PLASTIC (both 2023). His latest sees him use the flamboyant and raucous rock subgenre of Visual Kei for a coming-of-age film which starts when a young woman discovers a mysterious demo tape amongst her late-mother’s belongings and traces its origins to a club where the music is played.
German-Japanese co-production Johatsu – Into Thin Air, is a documentary by directors Andreas Hartmann and Arata Mori which looks into the real-life phenomenon of Johatsu, the people who disappear in Japan with the help of special agencies known as “night moving” services. This doc gives insights into the people who disappear, the people left behind, and the people facilitating the disappearances.
The Indie Forum also has shorts aplenty:
The Angel Island, by Ayaka Horii, is a dreamlike drama set almost entirely in the cultural melting pot of Penang, Malaysia, as a Japanese hospital patient finds himself mysteriously transported there in his hunt for someone special. It acts as a prequel to her forthcoming feature film debut, Two Angels, One Midnight Escape which was released back in February.
To Be A Woman, is Yo Enen’s follow-up to Double Life, which world premiered at the Tallinn Black Night’s Film Festival in 2022. It is a drama about a Chinese migrant’s marriage to a Japanese man embarking upon transgender changes.
Hong Sunhye’s Farewell Saranghae, Farewell is a bittersweet story of high school girlfriends saying goodbye to each other and, thus, their first love as one pursues K-Pop stardom.
Hokkaido-born Naoko Komiyama presents my name is, a short drama made ahead of her feature film debut. It is a small adventure of two school children who escape to a lake to become “what they want to be.”
Crumpled is the co-directorial debut by actors Chihiro Yuki and Hikaru Yabuki, depicting two struggling youths who take up boxing and find support in each other. The lead roles in this drama are performed by the directors.
Special Programs:
<Thai Cinema Kaleidoscope 2025>
This year’s special programs feature a real diversity of titles. Ping Lumpraploeng’s Muay Thai Hustle is a sports film that is a surreal comedy of a down-and-out boxer while the latest work from 4 Kings (OAFF 2022) director Puttipong Nakthong is In Youth We Trust, a gritty drama that looks at how Thailand’s dispossessed are doled out into a violent prison system, and then there is Taklee Genesis, a big-budget Hollywood-style time travel adventure from Chookiat Sakveerakul, which sees a mother and daughter journey across thousands of years of Thai history on a rescue mission.
Also programmed is Pat Boonnitipat’s feature debut How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies, a story of a conniving grandson out to get his grandma’s inheritance which turns into a sentimental family drama. It became a hit after social media users recorded themselves crying online and the film went on to be the most commercially successful film in Southeast Asia that year. With a similar mix of tones is The Paradise of Thorns from Boss Kuno, in another feature debut, which is a drama romance where a widowed gay man fights for his right to reclaim the land taken by his partner’s family after he discovers he has no legal claim.
The short programmed here is Thapanee Loosuwan’s Our Beloved Journey from Thailand, a Richard Linklater-esque walk-and-talk drama about a filmmaker couple who have broken up but rediscover their love during a journey through a subway.
<Special Focus on Hong Kong Films 2025>
Hong Kong is represented by All Shall Be Well, Ray Yeung’s Berlinale 2024 Teddy award-winning drama of a lesbian widow fighting for the recognition of her relationship in a society where the rights of LGBTQ people are still restricted by law. This film is a perfect pairing with The Paradise of Thorns. OAFF will also screen the world premiere of the director’s cut of Anselm Chan’s Last Dance, a careful balance of comedy that turns into a drama about funeral customs and gender roles on the island and in Taoism. It features Michael Hui and Dayo Wong’s odd-couple pairing of a funeral director and Taoist priest and it became the highest-grossing domestic film of all time.
Chung Yik-ching’s short film Little Dazzled Eyes has also been programmed.
<Taiwan: Movies on the Move 2025>
Amongst the titles from Taiwan are John Hsu’s Dead Talents Society and Yang Ya-Che’s The Chronicles of Libidoists, both box-office hits, the former’s story of a recently-deceased young woman’s campaign to scare up infamy to survive the supernatural celebrity economy netted 5 Golden Horse Awards in the technical categories while the latter boldly uses dazzlingly eye-catching poetic imagery, sex and nudity and alternative sexualities as an entry for a character study of lonely souls seeking to connect, with a star-making turn from Liu Chu-Ping (Bad Education, OAFF 2023) and an evolution in performance from Wu Kang-ren (2023 Golden Horse Best Actor Winner for Abang Adik).
The shorts programmed here are Chiang Chung-chieh’s Breezy Day and Yang Ling’s Cupcakes, Lonely Cats from Taiwan.
Special Screenings
PAGTATAG! The Documentary follows P-Pop (Pinoy Pop) boyband SB19’s second world tour as they seek to establish themselves and Filipino music on the world stage. Accompanying them on the tour was director/photographer Jed REGALA who captures the drama that almost saw the group disband and the passionate creativity that shows SB19 and their team of dancers, choreographers, and their stage director as true artists. The film And the Breadwinner is… uses SB19’s song “Mapa” as its theme.
You Will Die in 6 Hours comes from Lee Yun-Seok. This is his return to Osaka 10 years after screening Yuko’s Diary at OAFF 2015, and he brings his adaptation of Kazuaki Takano’s same-named thriller novel where a woman approaching her 30th birthday accompanies a man who claims to see the future and warns her she will die. It played in the Korean Fantastic: Feature-length Film section of the 28th Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival where it won a Best Actor award for Park Ju-hyun and the Audience Award.
Housen Cultural Foundation-supported program
OAFF continues its collaboration with the Osaka-based Housen Cultural Foundation, a group that funds undergraduate graduation films in the hope of nurturing the next generation of filmmaking talent.
Japan. These films will be screened at the Nakanoshima Art Museum, Osaka. Admission is free.
And Then How He Told the Horse Mackerel (真アジ, 2024, Dir: Shin Kimura)
Imperfect Me (不完全なわたし, 2024 Dir: Koichi Yamashina)
Life Is Snow (相談, 2024, Dir: Zhang Yaoyuan)
New Born Life (2024, Dir: Muki Osako)
Ten Easy Pieces (2024, Dirs: Sota Namise, Koya Yokomori, He Mengtian, Miyu Otsuki, Nicole L, Mirei Nose, Liu Yifei, Kaede Fujimoto, Hoi Pek I, Yusuke Koike)
The Melancholy of a Brass Player for Brass Quintet (金管五重奏の為の喇叭吹きの憂鬱, 2024, Dir: Daichi Furuya)
The Midnight Sun (折にふれて, 2024, Dir: Hina Murata)
Seasonless Love (季節のない愛, 2024, Dir: Yuki Nakazato)
Special Presentation
Fresh from an award-winning run at Venice International Film Festival, there will be a Special Presentation of Jiang Xiaoxuan’s To Kill a Mongolian Horse, an intimate character drama centred on a herdsman who balances running a beloved ranch facing tough times by day and performing horseback tricks in a city arena for tourists at night. Jiang took inspiration from a real-life friend and beautifully captures the extravagant flair and skill of these performances and contrasts them with the harsh reality faced by riders who cling on to their cultural identity in any way that they can.
Osaka Asian Film Festival 2025 will take place from March 14 to 23 at venues in Osaka City, including ABC Hall, Theatre Umeda, T-Joy Umeda and Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka.
Winners of the Grand-prix, Most Promising Talent Award and other awards will be announced at the Award Ceremony on March 23, followed by the Closing screening.