Tokyo fest unveils full lineup, jury members still pending

15 competition titles will vie for the Sakura grand prix, which carries a cash award of $50,000. Five titles will compete as world premieres: Oxide Pang’s 3D suspense-drama Sleepwalker; Arturo Pons’ feature debut The Compass Is Carried By The Dead Man (La Brújula La Lleva El Muerto); Greek crime drama J.A.C.E.directed by Menelaos Karamaghiolis; actor-producer Du Jiayi’s directing debut Kora and Shuichi Okita’s The Woodsman And The Rain, starring Koji Yakusho, as the only Japanese entry.

Among the international premieres in competition are Francesco Patierno’s Venice title Things From Another World and Turkish actor Muzaffer Özdemir’s directorial debut Home. Michael Winterbottom’s Trishna, Rodrigo Garcia’s Albert Nobbs and Pen-ek Ratanaruang’s Headshot compete as Asian premieres.

Prolific American producer Edward R. Pressman was announced as chairman of the competition jury, but the remaining jury members have yet to be confirmed. TIFF chairman Tatsumi “Tom” Yoda spoke of difficulties in securing commitments from jury candidates to a minimum ten day stay in Tokyo, citing possible apprehension over the earthquake disaster and Fukushima nuclear situation.

The 23-film special screenings section offers Japan premieres of upcoming releases. Titles include: Wim Wenders’ Pina, Lech Majewski’s The Mill And The Cross, Gu Su-yeon’s crime drama Hard Romanticker, Takahisa Zeze’s Montreal prize winner Life Back Then, Yuya Ishii’s Mitsuko Delivers. As previously reported TIFF will open with both Paul W.S. Anderson’s The Three Musketeers in 3D and Jackie Chan and Zhang Li’s $30 million historical epic 1911. The festival will close with the Japan premiere of Moneyball.

The Winds Of Asia Middle-East program offers recent titles from across the continent, including Na Hong-jin’s The Yellow Sea, Eric Khoo’s Tatsumi, and the Quattro Hong Kong omnibus series. Sub-programs include recent award winners from Filipino festival Cinemalaya, a spotlight on Pan-Asian actress-producer Kiki Sugino and documentaries focused on Asian cinema.

The 8-film Japanese Eyes program features Junko Kobayashi’s Between Today And Tomorrow,  Tetsuaki Matsue’s Tokyo Drifter and Takanori Tsujimoto’s Monster Killer.

An all-night retrospective on late filmmaker Juzo Itami is one of three programs in the Filmmaker’s Angle series. Other programs include Natural TIFF and the World Cinema section. As previously reported 9-film retrospective on veteran actress Kyoko Kagawa, featuring films by Akira Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi and Mikio Naruse.

In support of the disaster-affected Tohoku region, donations will be collected at TIFF cinemas and there will be special screenings in Sendai City.

TIFF and the TIFFCOM market (Oct 24-26) are the centerpieces of the multi-event Japan International Contents Festival (CoFesta). 18 official CoFesta events and 11 partner events span from September 15 to November 16 including the just-wrapped Tokyo Game Show (Sept 15-18), Digital Contents Expo (Oct 20-22), Tokyo International Music Market (Oct 24-27) and Stateside LA Eigafest (Nov 11-13).

Tokyo International Film Festival Competition Lineup

World Premieres

The Woodsman And The Rain (Kitsutsuki To Ame), Shuichi Okita (Japan)

The Compass is Carried by the Dead Man (La Brújula La Lleva El Muerto), Arturo Pons (Mexico)

J.A.C.E., Menelaos Karamaghiolis (Greece)

Kora, Du Jiayi (China)

Sleepwalker, Oxide Pang (Hong Kong-China)

International Premieres

Home(Yurt), Muzaffer Özdemir (Turkey)

Things From Another World(Cose Dell’Atro Mondo), Francesco Patierno (Italy)

When Pigs Have Wings (Le Cochon de Gaza), Sylvain Estibal (France-Belgium)

Asian Premieres

Albert Nobbs, Rodrigo Garcia (Ireland)

A Better Life (Une Vie Meilleure), Cédric Kahn ( France)

Detachment, Tony Kaye (USA)

Headshot, Pen-ek Ratanaruang (Thailand)

Play, Ruben Östlund (Sweden-Denmark-France)

Trishna, Michael Winterbottom (UK)

Untouchable (Intouchables), Eric Toledano & Olivier Nakache (France)