Japanese Films at the Edinburgh International Film Festival 2021

The Edinburgh International Film Festival takes place from the 18th to the 25th of August and there is one Japanese film there. 

Japanese Films at the Edinburgh International Film Festival 2019

The Edinburgh International Film Festival takes place between 19th and 30th June. There are around 121 new features from 42 countries across the globe. Japan makes up a tiny fraction, perhaps the smallest. It could be that I have missed titles in the line-up but I did scour the catalogue. The films do look good, though.

Here they are:

Japanese Films at the Edinburgh International Film Festival 2018

Japanese Films at the Edinburgh International Film Festival (June 20th to July 01st) and while compared to past editions of the festivals it’s disappointing, these are two top titles the event presents probably the best chance to see them in the UK.

Here they are!

Japanese Films at the Edinburgh International Film Festival 2017

The 2017 edition of the Edinburgh International Film Festival takes place from June 21^st until July 02^nd and the films have been announced. There is a mix of titles that give a good indication of what is happening with the Japanese film industry – the best film is an anime, all the rest are adaptations of books and familiar stories.

Here’s what’s on offer.

In This Corner of the World

この世界の片隅に 「Kono Sekai no Katasumi ni」

Running Time: 110 mins.

Director: Sunao Katabuchi

Writer: Sunao Katabuchi (Screenplay), Fumiyo Kono (Original Creator)

Animation Production: MAPPA

Starring: Rena Nounen (Suzu Urano), Daisuke Ono (Akira), Mayumi Shintani (San), Shigeru Ushiyama (Entaro), Megumi Han (Sumi), Minori Omi (Michiko), Natsuki Inaba (Harumi), Yoshimasa Hosoya (Shuusaku),

Website   ANN   MAL   UK Site

This is the UK premiere of an award-winning film that I had the pleasure of seeing in Hiroshima, the setting for part of the film, a couple of months ago. It took the Animation of the Year award at the 40th annual Japan Academy and I am not surprised since it is a beautiful and stately film about an absent-minded artistic young woman trying to survive the hardship of war. I wasn’t the only one impressed since the film won the Hiroshima Peace Film Award at the Hiroshima International Film Festival in November last year and the film magazine Kinema Jump named it the best Japanese movie of 2016 and it awarded Katabuchi the Best Director Award.

The film was orchestrated by Sunao Katabuchi who directed the awesome Mai Mai Miracle and the TV anime Black Lagoon. It was animated by the studio MAPPA (Shingeki no Bahamut: Genesis, Terror in Resonance).

Synopsis: Suzu Urano is a Hiroshima girl from a close-knit family but when she marries a naval officer, she has to move from Hiroshima City to Kure, the city which launched the battleship Yamato and the site of one of Japan’s largest naval bases. As a new housewife, she encounters uncertainty in her new family, her new city, and her new world but she perseveres and finds happiness even as the war grinds on and comes closer to home.

Japanese Films at the 2016 Edinburgh International Film Festival

The 2016 Edinburgh International Film Festival takes place in June and it runs from the 15^th to the 26^th. The programme was revealed today and there is an interesting line-up that mixes classic and contemporary films. Highlights include Satoko Yokohama’s latest, The Actor and indie crime film Ken and Kazu.

What’s on the programme:

Japanese Films at the Edinburgh International Film Festival 2015

The Edinburgh International Film Festival takes place from June 17^th to the 28^th and yesterday it launched its programme revealing the films that will be playing over the course of the event. While there is no anime on the bill there are a number of interesting live-action titles which will be screened.

I started covering the festival in 2013 (Edinburgh 2013) and continued in 2014 (Edinburgh 2014) but I’ll be honest and say that I think that the festival will not have as good a Japanese line-up as it did in 2012 when Chris Fujiwara took over as artistic director and programmed the Shinji Somai retrospective. I didn’t begin covering the festival until 2013 and now Chris Fujiwara has stepped down so I don’t expect a major injection of Japanese films on that scale again for quite a while. What has been selected is an interesting mix of dramas with 100 Yen Love being the most attractive and Parasyte the first part of a big-budget sci-fi action double-bill. Why not programme the second one as well because fans will be left hanging on the cliff-hanger? I think it may have something to do with the UK distributor Animatsu acquiring the first film and giving it as much fanfare as possible. The second film may not be theirs yet but we do know that they will release the anime. That’s a minor complaint, though because there are still interesting titles to be found.

Tickets and more information on the films are available by clicking on the links: