Japan’s leading indie film festival, Tokyo Filmex (November 23-December 1) has unveiled the line-up for its competition, opening and closing films, and other sections.
The festival, which marks its 25th year in 2024, will open with Jia Zhang-Ke’s Caught By The Tides, which played in competition at this year’s Cannes, and close with Hong Sang-soo’s By the Stream, for which actor Kim Min-hee won the Pardo for best performance at Locarno.
The 10 competition titles include the Georgian film April, directed by Dea Kulumbegashvili, which won the special jury prize at Venice this year; Girls Will Be Girls, the Indo-French drama by Shuchi Talati which played in competition at Sundance; and Qiu Yang’s Some Rain Must Fall, a China-US-France-Singapore co-production that premiered at the Berlinale.
Presenting the competition line-up, programming director Naoki Kamiya said his primary criteria for selecting films is to focus on directors on their first, second or third films, and that because Filmex allows films which have premiered elsewhere (only requiring a Japanese premiere), he has the freedom to focus on films that are “interesting first and foremost.”
The festival’s international jury is comprised of director Lou Ye (Blind Massage), producer Catherine Dussart and La Frances Hui, curator at MOMA’s department of film. Lou’s docufiction film An Unfinished Film will be shown in the special screenings section.
Other special screenings include Elizabeth Lo’s doc Mistress Dispeller, which premiered at Venice; Rithy Panh’s Meeting with Pol Pot, which has been selected as Cambodia’s submission for the international Oscar and was produced by jury member Dussart; and Kenichi Ugana’s The Gesuidouz, which premiered in Toronto’s midnight madness section. In total, the festival will screen 36 films.
Running alongside Filmex is Talents Tokyo, a talent development program associated with the Berlinale for Asian filmmakers. This year Talents Tokyo will host 17 young directors and producers from 11 countries and regions.
Tokyo Filmex will take place from at Marunouchi Toei, a change in venue from Yurakucho Asahi Hall. Additional screenings will take place at Human Trust Yurakucho.
Tokyo FILMeX Competition
April (Georgia/France/Italy), dir. Dea Kulumbegashvili
Happy Holidays (Palestine/Germany/France/Italy/Qatar), dir. Scandar Copti
Santosh (India/UK/Germany/France), dir. Sandhya Suri
Girls Will Be Girls (India/France/US/Norway), dir. Shuchi Talati
Viet and Nam (Vietnam/Philippines/Singapore/France/Holland/Italy/Germany/US), dir. Truong Minh Quý
Stranger Eyes (Singapore/Taiwan/France/US), dir. Yeo Siew Hua
Mongrel (Taiwan/Singapore/France), dirs. Chiang Wei Liang, Yin You Qiao
Some Rain Must Fall (China/US/France/Singapore), dir. Qiu Yang
Brief History of a Family (China/France/Denmark/Qatar), dir. Lin Jianjie
Winter in Sokcho (France/South Korea), dir. Koya Kamura
Special Screenings
Caught by the Tides (China), dir. Jia Zhang-Ke
By the Stream (South Korea), dir. Hong Sang-soo
Blue Sun Palace (US), dir. Constance Tsang
Mistress Dispeller (China/US), dir. Elizabeth Lo
Meeting with Pol Pot (France/Cambodia/Taiwan/Qatar/Turkey), dir. Rithy Panh
Abiding Nowhere (Taiwan/US), dir. Tsai Ming-Liang
Where (Taiwan), dir. Tsai Ming-Liang
An Unfinished Film (Singapore/Germany), dir. Lou Ye
Sujo (Mexico/US/France), dirs. Astrid Rondero, Fernanda Valadez
The Damned (Italy/Belgium/US/Canada), dir. Roberto Minervini
The Gesuidouz (Japan), dir. Kenichi Ugana
Made in Japan
Ulysses (Japan/Spain), dir. Hikaru Uwagawa
After the Snowmelt (Taiwan/Japan), dir. Lo Yi-Shan
The Height of the Coconut Trees (Japan), dir. Du Jie
Diamonds in the Sand (Japan/Malaysia/Philippines), dir. Janus Victoria
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