Japanese Films at the Glasgow International Film Festival 2019

The Glasgow Film Festival (February 20th – March 03rd) will launch for its 15th edition in just under a month’s time and there are three Japanese films on offer and one Japan-China co-production. Two of the titles come from Third Window Films and two have not been licensed for the UK as far as I am aware so this might be your best chance to see them.

Here is what is on offer:

Vision ビジョン Dir: Naomi Kawase (2018)

Vision    

ビジョン 「Bijon」

Running Time: 110 mins.

Release Date: June 08th, 2018

Director:  Naomi Kawase

Writer: Naomi Kawase (Screenplay),

Starring: Juliette Binoche, Masatoshi Nagase, Min Tanaka, Mari Natsuki, Mirai Moriyama, Minami,

Website    IMDB

Naomi Kawase is a director who translates new age ideas to the screen with ease. Her work evidences an eye for the beauty of the natural world and a knack for getting good performances from her actors. Kawase delivers beautiful paeans to the power of life itself as exemplified here in a story of a French woman who heads to an ancient forest in Japan as she seeks a mysterious herb that can heal many things including, she hopes, an aching pain in her heart.

Japanese Films at the Toronto International Film Festival 2018

The Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 06th to the 16th and it has a good selection of films that have cropped up in other festivals and one brand-new title so putting this post together was easier than in previous years.

Here are the films:

Shoplifters, A Forest of Wool and Steel, When I Get Home, My Wife Always Pretends to Be Dead., Vision, WAKITA PEAK, Enokida Bouekido, Life in Overtime, 5TO9, Asagao to kase-san / Kase-san and Morning Glories, Tokyo Living Dead Idol, Cinema Kabuki: Tokai Dochu Hizakurige Kobikicho Nazotokibanashi, Laughing Under the Clouds Gaiden Fate, The Double-Headed Fūma Japanese Film Trailers

Happy weekend!

We made it through to another one!

I’ve been busy at my day job but it’s the good kind of busy. Had some fun working, the highlight of which was installing perspex for a stage housing an Edo-period screen, and dining with Japanese and British colleagues at a fancy hotel. That work is calming down over the next week and I’ll be resuming other duties soon including movie watching. Due to my regular job, in terms of this blog, my work at the Osaka Asian Film Festival came to the rescue and allowed me to have some content ready to go over the last couple of weeks. I posted a review of The Sower and an interview with that films director, Yosuke Takeuchi. V-Cinema also posted my interview with Rina Tanaka and her cast and crew from the film Filled With Steam.

Here’s what’s released this weekend.