Japanese production company K2 Pictures has unveiled a production fund of nearly $33m (¥5bn) and a raft of upcoming titles, including the first documentary from filmmaker Takashi Miike.
Two years after the launch of the K2P Film Fund I in Cannes, the company returned to reveal the results, with major investors including financial institutions such as Mitsubishi UFJ Bank and the Development Bank of Japan.
At a press conference in Cannes today (May 17), K2 Pictures CEO Muneyuki Kii outlined that three films have already been completed, three are in post-production and five are scheduled for release before the end of 2026. It was also announced that five features are scheduled to begin production this year.
Among those set for release are Shumei - The Living Legacy Of Kabuki, which marks the first documentary by 13 Assassins director Miike. The film explores the highly personal yet public moment when an actor inherits a stage name in kabuki, Japan’s traditional performing art. It follows Ichikawa Danjūrō XIII, recording the behind-the-scenes preparations for his historic name-inheritance debut performance. Set for release in September, a teaser trailer was unveiled at the press conference.
Further titles included Gigant, an animated featured based on a popular manga of the same name by Hiroya Oku. The sci-fi action film follows a porn actress who gains the ability to grow into a giant and uses her powers to fight attackers from the future.
Also on the upcoming slate is The Nuke Crab from director Koto Nagata, set in Fukushima after the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011. The social noir centres on the divisions faced by local residents over radiation contamination from the nuclear accident, compensation issues and the struggles of bereaved families of disaster victims. Nagata’s previous feature, Baka’s Identity, played in competition at Busan 2025.
Takuya Kato’s NAP is described as an experimental film about a person who has a phobia of eating in public and develops a sleep allergy, while Mexican Horror is in development from Shinzo Katayama, an assistant director to Bong Joon Ho who recently helmed Netflix series Human Vapor (co-written by Train To Busan and Colony director Yeon Sang-ho). Mexican Horror is being developed with US outfit Miércoles Entertainment and Mexico’s The Lift.
Conde Koma is from director Keishi Otomo, known for the Rurouni Kenshin series and Netflix’s 10DANCE. Set on the eve of the First World War, it follows a man who has travelled the world spreading Japanese jujutsu, ultimately sparking a movement that led to modern combat sports like MMA. It is set to be a Japan-Brazil-US co-production.
Also in development is My Teacher from No Deok who directed 2013’s Very Ordinary Couple and Netflix series Glitch, and screenwriter Junya Ikegami, known for The Blood Of Wolves and Netflix series The Queen Of Villains.
Hold will mark the feature directorial debut of Ayako Fujitani, who starred Hideaki Anno’s Shiki-Jitsu and Michel Gondry’s TokyoI. Set in modern-day Kyoto, it follows two strangers – a Japanese woman and a foreign woman – who are bound by a fateful connection that causes both the lives shift.
Seen recently at Udine Far East Film Festival’s Project Market, UFO Club is the feature-length debut of director Milena Kaneko and is a coming-of-age story in which a girl struggling with loneliness meets others through her search for UFOs and encounters a boy who claims to be an alien.
Pitched during Berlin’s EFM, The Book Of Human Insects is directed by Ken Ninomiya and is a dark musical in which a woman living in poverty is focused to assume the identity of her recently deceased famous twin sister – only to find that we ability to mimic others is slowly erasing her soul.
K2 Pictures was launched in 2024 by former Toei executive Kii as an alternative to the traditional approach to film production in Japan, in which profits benefit financiers over creatives. Under K2’s system, 70% of profit goes to investors while 30% goes to cast and crew in addition to their base fee.
It’s debut feature, satirical horror Mag Mag by comedian Yuriyan Retriever, opened in Japanese cinemas on February 6 following a festival run.
Upcoming titles include Hirokazu Koreeda’s Look Back; Myung-ah Son’s Trophy, set for release on July 10; Miwa Nishikawa’s Children Untold, opening on October 16; Nanako Hirose’s Between Two Lovers, scheduled for November 27; and Kazuyuki Izutsu’s Border, which is lined up for 2027.
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