Takahisa Zeze’s Japanese prisoner of war drama Fragments Of The Last Will is set to world premiere as the opening film of the Tokyo International Film Festival, which runs October 24 to November 2.
The festival will close with Oliver Hermanus’s UK drama Living, starring Bill Nighy, an adaptation of Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 Japanese drama Ikiru with a revised screenplay by Kazuo Ishiguro, whose credits include Remains Of The Day and Never Let Me Go.
Fragments Of The Last Will is based on the true story of Hatao Yamamoto, a Japanese prisoner of war detained in a post-Second World War Siberian gulag. Yamamoto believed that he would be able to reunite with his wife and children in Japan and fought to keep hope alive for his fellow POWs.
The cast is led by Kazunari Ninomiya and also includes Keiko Kitagawa, Tori Matsuzaka, Kento Nakajima, Akira Terao, Kenta Kiritani and Ken Yasuda. It is set to receive a release in Japan on December 9 through Toho.
Shozo Ichiyama, TIFF programming director, said the film “exceeds the scale of ordinary Japanese films and I found the story profoundly moving.”
Originally a director of ‘pinku’ films (soft-core pornography) in the 1990s, Zeze has tackled a wide range of genres including sci-fi action title Strayer’s Chronicle and two-part suspense mystery 64. His drama Heaven’s Story won the Fipresci prize at the Berlinale in 2011 while The Lowlife explored the lives of three women working in Japan’s porn industry and played in Competition at Tokyo in 2017.
Living will receive its Japanese premiere at the festival and stars Nighy as a civil servant in 1950s London who sets out to find the meaning of life after he learns he has a terminal illness.
Produced by the UK’s Number 9 Films, it premiered at Sundance in January and has since been selected for Venice, Toronto, San Sebastian, Telluride, London and Zurich film festivals. Toho will release in Japan in spring 2023. Sony Pictures Classics has US and various other territory rights, and plans a Stateside release on December 23.
TIFF is planning to host its first full-scale festival since the Covid-19 outbreak. Last year’s edition took place in-person but hosted only a small number of international visitors due to strict Covid regulations. TIFFCOM, the content market that runs alongside Tokyo International Film Festival, will take place as an online-only event for the third consecutive year from October 25-27.
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