The 35th Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) has launched with its first full-scale red carpet in three years.
At the Takarazuka Theatre in the festival’s new main area of Hibiya-Yurakucho-Ginza, relocated last year from Roppongi, international competition jury president and US director Julie Taymor spoke from the red carpet: “It’s an incredible time now that – since Covid – you’re able to have many more international guests, which is so critical at a time in the world which is so divisive.”
TIFF was only able to host eight foreign guests last year, due to Covid restrictions, but has invited more than 100 international guests this year – still not back to pre-pandemic numbers but deemed encouraging by organisers and industry. Shozo Ichiyama, TIFF’s programming director, told Screen that numerous cast and crew have paid for their own travel and accommodation to participate in the festival “despite our budget limitations”.
Taymor added: “We are travellers and, in that way, the films draw out of us empathy and that is what we need now - tremendous empathy. We live the lives of others and we become them for a moment and that hopefully makes this world more sane.”
The US filmmaker was joined by fellow jury members at the event today (October 24) that included Korean actress Shim Eun-kyung and Portuguese director Joao Pedro Rodrigues.
Other notable figures on the red carpet were Japanese filmmaker Yukisada Isao, who will preside over the Amazon Prime Video Take One Award jury; Thai producer and Asian Future jury member Soros Sukhum; Japanese director Hiroki Ryuichi, who has three films in the festival’s gala selection; and filmmaker Daishi Matsunaga, whose romantic drama Egoist plays in competition, alongside his stars Ryohei Suzuki and Hio Miyazawa.
The festival opened with the world premiere of Takahisa Zeze’s Japanese prisoner-of-war drama Fragments Of The Last Will with director and actor Ninomiya Kazunari on hand to present the feature.
“Even in harsh circumstances, people do not lose hope,” said Zeze about what he hoped his film conveys in a time of Covid and war in Ukraine.
Ukraine doc added
Running October 24 to November 2, TIFF is set to screen 111 films across its nine main sections.
Organisers recently added Freedom On Fire: Ukraine’s Fight For Freedom, Evgeny Afineevsky’s documentary about the Russian invasion and Ukrainians’ stand against it, which will screen in the World Focus – Special Screening section.
A total of 169 titles will screen during the festival when including TIFF’s Open Air Screenings and National Film Archive collaboration project.
The festival will close on November 2 with Living, director Oliver Hermanus’ UK adaptation of Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 Japanese drama Ikiru with a revised screenplay by Kazuo Ishiguro and starring Bill Nighy.
TIFF is also set to present the Kurosawa Akira Award on October 29 to Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, whose Bardo, False Chronicle Of A Handful Of Truths, is playing in the Gala Selection, and Koji Fukada, who is due to have a TIFF Lounge talk with Tsai Ming-Liang whose 30 years of filmmaking are being honoured at the festival.
This year’s lifetime achievement award will be presented at the closing ceremony to Nogami Teruyo, who worked with Kurosawa for 50 years in various roles including continuity assistant, production manager and assistant producer on films such as Rashomon and Seven Samurai.
No comments yet