Tokyo International Film Festival has unveiled the full lineup for its 39th edition, including 15 titles in its Competition strand and the features that will compete for the Asian Future and new Nippon Cinema Now awards.
The festival has programmed 204 films, up from 183 in 2025, and will take place from October 26 to November 4.
Scroll down for Competition, Asian Future and Nippon Cinema Now titles
The main Competition includes films from Asia, Europe and South America, and seven world premieres alongside titles previously seen at Cannes, Venice, Berlin and Toronto.
World premieres include The Canary’s Lullaby, a Taiwan-Japan co-production from director Akira Ikeda, who won the Rotterdam Tiger Award in 2014 with Anatomy Of A Paper Clip. His latest is a fantasy drama about an elderly woman who bonds with a strange baby creature found in the mountains, only to be ostracised from her superstitious village.
Also set to bow at Tokyo is Fuxi: Four Tales Of Feasting, the second film by China’s Qiu Jiongjiong after 2021 Locarno jury prize winner A New Old Play. The ambitious epic is told through surreal feasts over four millennia and shot entirely inside a hand-painted studio. It stars Lee Kang-sheng, a regular in Tsai Ming-liang films.
Garin Nugroho, an acclaimed Indonesian filmmaker with more than 20 narrative features to his name – including Venice selections Opera Jawa (2006) and Memories Of My Body (2018) – returns with Red Before Dawn. Set in 1946 Indonesia, it stars Nicholas Saputra as a geologist on a mission to deliver investigative documents amid post-independence turmoil.
Sister Brother Manhole Cover is a satire from Macedonian-US director Milcho Manchevski, whose debut Before The Rain won the Golden Lion in Venice in 1994 and was last at Tokyo in 2022 with Kaymak. Further world premieres include Two Cigarettes, Three Nights from Japan’s Yukiko Mishima, director of Dear Etranger; and France-Hong Kong co-production The Night That Binds Us by Wang Jiangyong, about a student in Shanghai who finds romance with a middle-aged dorm manager.
Heading to Tokyo after first being seen at Venice are Rubaiyat Hossain’s The Difficult Bride, a supernatural drama set in a Bangladesh beauty parlour; Samuele Rossi’s Second World War resistance drama Even If Hell Came; and Jelena Maksimović’s Until The Day Ends, a coming-of-age story set against Serbia’s student demonstrations.
Also receiving their Asian premieres are Double Freedom by Argentina’s Lisandro Alonso, first seen in Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes; Teodora Ana Mihai’s political thriller Heysel 85, which premiered at Berlin; Sun Xun’s Magic Atlas, which bowed at Locarno; and Bahman Ghobadi’s Trees Are Watching, starring Eva Green, executive produced by Martin Scorsese and fresh from Toronto. Rounding out the selection is Memories Of Prison from Portugal’s Sérgio Graciano, who was last in Competition at Tokyo with The Englishman’s Papers in 2024.
Tokyo International Film Festival 2026
Competition
The Canary’s Lullaby (Tai-Japan)
Dir. Akira Ikeda
The Difficult Bride (Fr-Bang-Port-Nor-Ger)
Dir. Rubaiyat Hossain
Double Freedom (Chile-Arg-Lux-Ger-UK)
Dir. Lisandro Alonso
Even If Hell Came (It)
Dir. Samuele Rossi
Fuxi: Four Tales Of Feasting (HK-Tai-Japan-Saudi-Qatar)
Dir. Qiu Jiongjiong
Heysel 85 (Bel-Neth-Ger)
Dir. Teodora Ana Mihai
The Intertwining (Japan)
Dir. Akira Yamamoto
Magic Atlas (Sing)
Dir. Sun Xun
Memories Of Prison (Port)
Dir. Sérgio Graciano
The Night That Binds Us (Fr-HK)
Dir. Wang Jiangyong
Red Before Dawn (Indo)
Dir. Garin Nugroho
Sister Brother Manhole Cover (N Mac-Bul-Serb-Alb-It-UK)
Dir. Milcho Manchevski
Trees Are Watching (Turkey)
Dir. Bahman Ghobadi
Two Cigarettes, Three Nights (Japan)
Dir. Yukiko Mishima
Until the Day Ends (Serb-Bul-Slov-Mont-Cro-Ger)
Dir. Jelena Maksimović
Asian Future
EDJOP (Phil)
Dir. Katski Flores
I’m Nothing Special Really (Iran)
Dir. Navid Mohammadzadeh
Jani Be Good (Indo)
Dir. Ariani Darmawan
Miracle Summer (Japan)
Dir. Ronglin Cai
On The Heights (S Kor)
Dir. Kim Hyun-min
The Paper Flower (India)
Dir. Chezhiyan
Saravah (Japan)
Dir. Hironori Kujiraoka
Serife Tavsan (Switz-Turkey)
Dir. Tareq Daoud
Shyrmauyq (Kazak)
Dir. Azamat Shargyn
Silver (Iran)
Dir. Soheil Karimi
Nippon Cinema Now
Between Us (Japan)
Dir. Shingo Matsumura
Okinawa Saudade (Japan)
Dir. Yoju Matsubayashi
Kefi (Japan)
Dir. Kisin Saito
Earthlings In Love (Japan)
Dir. Shinichiro Ueda
Silver Express (Japan)
Dir. Tanaka Miki
Hinotama: Ball Of Fire (Japan)
Dir. Takenoshin Yaza
Plastic Love! (Japan-Austria)
Dir. Sybilla Patrizia, Clementine Nuttall
Chihiro | Akemi (Japan)
Dir. Satoshi Natori
Yamazaki Riverside -Over An Actor’s Shoulder- (Japan)
Dir. Isshin Inudo
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