Tokyo film festival makes key changes for comeback edition

The 35th Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF), which opened on October 24 and runs through November 2, is operating its first full-scale physical edition since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The festival is looking to build on innovations and changes for its 2021 edition that included relocating the festival centre to the Hibiya-Yurakucho-­Marunouchi-Ginza area from the Roppongi district and appointing veteran producer and Tokyo FilmEx co-founder/­director Shozo Ichiyama as TIFF’s new programming director, who implemented a programme overhaul.

“Although we continue to monitor the global health situation and cannot let our guard down yet, TIFF continues to strive to accelerate the evolution that we implemented last year by taking a number of innovative steps for a further leap forward,” says Hiroyasu Ando, who was appointed TIFF chairman in 2019 towards the end of a long diplomatic career and amid a decade-long stint as president of the Japan Foundation (2011-20). Among those steps are an expansion of TIFF’s venue footprint, reviving the Kurosawa Akira Award, and increasing the number of international guests.

Like many events around the world, TIFF saw a decrease in private sponsorship in the first year of the pandemic but has since been able to gain new sponsors. “It was difficult due to Covid-19, but we were able secure the necessary budget of over jpy800m [$5.3m] to operate this year’s edition with support from local communities and corporations,” says Ando, who has also made it TIFF’s goal to become a more locally engaged citywide and nationwide event through collaboration with local companies and administrations.

Meanwhile, its affiliated content market Tiffcom is running October 25-27 online, aiming to return in-person next year (see below). 

The festival has added three large cinemas — Toho Cinemas Hibiya, Marunouchi Toei and Marunouchi Piccadilly — to its list of screening venues, which allowed organisers to increase the number of selections from 86 films last year to 111 films in the nine main sections this year. Those titles came from 42 countries and regions, selected from a total of 1,695 submissions — up from last year’s 1,533 submissions. There are 33 world premieres and one is an international premiere — Roberta Torre’s The Fabulous Ones, which recently debuted in Venice sidebar Giornate Degli Autori, and is screening in Tokyo’s international competition.

The 15-title international competition also presents eight world premieres including Rikiya Imaizumi’s Japanese feature by the window, Sanjeewa Pushpak­umara’s Sri Lanka-Italy co-production Peacock Lament, Bui Thac Chuen’s Vietnam-France-Singapore co‑production Glorious Ashes and Daishi Matsunaga’s Japanese title Egoist. TIFF hosted its first full-scale red carpet in three years on opening day with the world premiere of Takahisa Zeze’s Japanese prisoner-of-war drama Fragments Of The Last Will.

A bigger celebration

Last year, the festival was only able to invite eight overseas guests due to the pandemic but this year organisers expect to host more than 100 international guests. Those planning to attend include international competition jury president and US director Julie Taymor and her fellow jury members including Korean actress Shim Eun-kyung and Portuguese director Joao Pedro Rodrigues. Others guests include filmmakers in competition Milcho Manchevski (Kaymak), Emir Baigazin (Life) and Matsunaga with his actors Ryohei Suzuki and Hio Miyazawa.

The festival is closing with Oliver Hermanus’s UK drama Living starring Bill Nighy. An adaptation of Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 Japanese drama Ikiru with a revised screenplay by Kazuo Ishiguro, the film premiered at Sundance in January and has screened at other festivals including Venice, Toronto and San Sebastian. TIFF’s closing night is the film’s Japanese premiere, ahead of Toho’s local release in spring 2023.

Among other key titles are two world premieres from Japan in the gala section — Daisuke Miura’s And So I’m At A Loss and Ryuichi Hiroki’s Phases Of The Moon — along with other high-profile festival titles such as Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees Of Inisherin and Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling, both of which were at the recent Venice Film Festival.

“This year, we received much stronger Japanese films than last year. We selected three Japanese films in competition — last year it was two — and four Japanese films in gala selection — last year it was none,” says Ichiyama. “Probably it’s because Japanese filmmaking is coming back to normal,” he adds. “I’m very pleased that many filmmakers chose TIFF as the place to launch their films. I hope TIFF can continue to be such a place where filmmakers can meet various people who can support their future projects.”

Towards this end, the festival is hosting the TIFF Lounge where industry professionals can meet. The venue will also host talks including a conversation between Koji Fukada and Tsai Ming-Liang, who will be at TIFF for his 30th anniversary tribute retrospective, co-organised by Tokyo FilmEx.

Ongoing influence

After 14 years, the Kurosawa Akira Award has been revived to honour the renowned Japanese auteur’s legacy and ongoing influence. The award is presented to film­makers who are making extraordinary contributions to world cinema and are expected to help define the film industry’s future.

This year, the award is being presented to two filmmakers: Alejandro G Inarritu, whose latest film Bardo, False Chronicle Of A Handful Of Truths, is Mexico’s Academy Awards submission after premiering in Venice competition and will play in Tokyo’s gala selection; and Japanese director Fukada for a filmmaking career that includes Love Life and Harmonium but also for his contributions to the film industry such as launching an arthouse theatre aid initiative during the pandemic with fellow directors including Ryusuke Hamaguchi.

In tandem with the revived Kurosawa Akira Award, this year’s lifetime achievement award goes to longtime Kurosawa collaborator Teruyo Nogami (Rashomon, Seven Samurai).

In conjunction with the National Film Archive, the festival is also holding a retrospective of Directors Company, the legendary film production house established by directors such as Kazuhiko Hasegawa, Shinji Somai and Kiyoshi Kurosawa in 1982. The showcase includes the world premieres of the restored version of Somai’s Luminous Woman and the 2K digitally remastered version of Banmei Takahashi’s Door.

“Our aim is to organise the festival as the meeting place of people who are involved in filmmaking,” says Ichiyama, who encourages international guests to avail themselves of Tokyo’s many outstanding restaurants and bars. “I hope foreign people who attend TIFF can also enjoy the town.”