Tokyo Film Festival Unveils Full Lineup for In-Person Event

Patrick Frater
·4 min read

Iranian action drama “World War III,” which won two awards at the recent Venice festival, will feature among the main competition titles at next month’s Tokyo International Film Festival.

The festival will operate as an in-person event with foreign filmmakers, media and other guests in attendance from Oct. 24-Nov. 2, 2022.

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“World War III” is joined in the competition section by the world premiere of Milcho Manchevski’s “Kaymak,” Spanish director Carlos Vermut’s “Manticore” and Roberta Torre’s “The Fabulous Ones,” Michale Boganim’s “Tel Aviv Beirut,” and Youssef Chebbi’s debut film “Ashkal.”

The 15-strong competition also includes two Japanese films Imaizumi Rikiya’s “By The Window” and Matsunaga Daishi’s “Egoist” and two Japanese co-productions, Fukunaga Takeshi’s “Mountain Woman,” and Kyrgyzstan director Aktan Arym Kubat’s “This Is What I Remember.”

Winners from the competition section will be chosen by a jury headed by Julie Taymor, along with Joao Pedro Rodrigues, Marie-Christine de Navacelle, Shim Eun-kyung and Katsumi Yanagijima.

The festival previously announced that “Fragments of the Last Will,” a post-WWII prisoner of war drama directed by Zeze Takahisa as its opening title. The event will close with “Living,” directed by Oliver Hermanus and starring Bill Nighy. The film is a reworking of Kurosawa Akira’s 1952 classic “Ikiru,” with a revised screenplay by Ishiguro Kazuo.

Gala screenings go to 14 films from recent international festivals or major local titles that are scheduled for Japanese commercial release. They include: David O. Russell’s “Amsterdam”; Miura Daisukke’s “And So I’m At A Loss”; Martin McDonagh’s “The Banshees of Inisherin”; Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s “Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths”; Wai Ka-fai’s “Detectives Vs Sleuths”; Olivia Wilde’s “Don’t Worry Darling”; Alexander Sokurov’s “Fairy Tail”; Mark Mylod’s “The Menu”; Robert Eggers’ “The Northman”; Noah Baumbach’s “White Noise”; Giuseppe Tornatore’s “Ennio” and three by Hiroki Ryuichi, “Motherhood,” “Phases of the Moon” and “2 Women.”

The festival’s Asian Future section comprises ten films, all world premieres. They include: “The Altman Method” from Israel’s Nadav Aronowicz; “Butterflies Live Only One Day,” from Iran’s Mohammadreza Vatandous; “Cloves & Carnations” by Turkey’s Bekir Bulbul; “The Cord of Life,” by China’s Qiao Sixue; “I ai,” by Japan’s MahiTo The People; “A Light Never Goes Out by Hong Kong’s Anastasia Tsang; “Opium,” by India’s Aman Sachdeva; “A Place of Our Own,” by India’s Ektara Collective; “Sayonara, Girls,” by Japan’s Nakagawa Shun; and “Suddenly,” by Turkey’s Melisa Onel.

The TIFF Series outreach to the TV sector will be continued. This year it will showcase the world premieres of Japanese series “Gannibal” and “Kamen Rider Black Sun,” and the Japanese premiere of French director Olivier Assayas’s “Irma Vep.”

The festival relocated to the Hibiya-Yurakucho-Ginza area in 2021, having previously operated from the Roppongi district for many years. It functioned as a real-world event last year, but had only a few dozen foreign visitors, due to strict border controls. The newly added Tokyo Takarazuka Theater will be the home for the opening ceremony. The closing ceremony will take place at the Tokyo International Forum.

Tokyo’s TIFF Lounge talk sessions between leading auteurs from Asia and beyond, will return and be co-presented for the third year by The Japan Foundation and TIFF. There will also be panel events related to the “Super Sentai” tokusatsu franchise, Special Talk Sessions by creative force Kawamura Genki, and a TIFF Teens anniversary session with the leading auteurs who have served as mentors for the past five years.

In conjunction with the screening of Maryna Er Gorbach’s “Klondike” in the World Focus section, the festival will be collecting contributions for Ukraine in theaters.

Despite the reduction of border controls, the TIFFCOM rights market that normally accompanies the festival, will remain in online-only mode this year. It will operate Oct. 25-27, 2022. TIFFCOM too will include seminars and webinars and the market’s Gap Finance program.

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