Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days is set to open this year’s Tokyo International Film Festival, which has also set monster feature Godzilla Minus One as its closing film.
Perfect Days will receive its Asian premiere at TIFF, which runs from October 23 to November 1. The film premiered in Competition at Cannes in May, where lead actor Koji Yakusho received the best actor award, and will screen at Toronto in September.
Set in Tokyo, it follows a toiler cleaner who seems utterly content as he goes about his everyday routine as a series of unexpected encounters gradually reveal more of his past. The Match Factory handles sales and the film is set for a release in Japan through Bitters End on December 22.
German filmmaker Wenders will also preside over the international competition jury at this year’s TIFF, where he will additionally host a retrospective of influential Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu marking the 120th anniversary of the Tokyo Story director’s birth.
The festival will close on November 1 with a screening of Godzilla Minus One, directed by sci-fi and fantasy specialist Takashi Yamazaki. It will screen two days ahead of its November 3 release in Japan through Toho.
Plot details of the monster film have been so far kept under wraps but it is known to be set after the Second World War, with a synopsis from the festival stating: “After the war, Japan has been reduced to zero. Godzilla appears and plunges the country into a negative state. Against the most desperate situation in the history of Japan, how — and with whom —will Japan stand up to it?”
It marks the 37th film in the Godzilla franchise and Toho’s 33rd Godzilla film. The original Godzilla, known in Japan as Gojira, premiered on October 27, 1954.
TIFF programming director Shozo Ichiyama said of the film: “Godzilla Minus One is a remarkable work that carries forward the spirit instilled by the original creators of the first Godzilla, while also showcasing the many challenges that the director took on.”
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