Soon it's that time of year again! Just a few weeks left until the 24th Nippon Connection Film Festival once again envelops Frankfurt am Main (Germany) in bright pink. From May 28 to June 2, 2024, the world's largest festival of Japanese cinema will showcase around 100 short and feature films at eight venues. The country's culture will also be explored through the extensive culture program, reflecting Japan's musical, culinary, and artistic diversity.
The Nippon Connection Film Festival presents works by both established filmmakers and emerging directors. From Takeshi Kitano's action-packed samurai film Kubi to the captivating comedy Fly Me To The Saitama -From Biwa Lake With Love- by Hideki Takeuchi, and Yoshimi Itazu's imaginative animation The Concierge, the film program offers highlights of various genres. Most films will celebrate their German, European, or international premieres at the festival. The festival's focus on Crossing Borders, supported by the Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain, explores...
The Nippon Connection Film Festival presents works by both established filmmakers and emerging directors. From Takeshi Kitano's action-packed samurai film Kubi to the captivating comedy Fly Me To The Saitama -From Biwa Lake With Love- by Hideki Takeuchi, and Yoshimi Itazu's imaginative animation The Concierge, the film program offers highlights of various genres. Most films will celebrate their German, European, or international premieres at the festival. The festival's focus on Crossing Borders, supported by the Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain, explores...
- 4/6/2024
- by Rouven Linnarz
- AsianMoviePulse
Spatiality and memory entwined serve as a unique harbinger of emotions. In the film “Wonderwall”, directed by Yuki Maeda, pain and laughter, hellos and adieus have a physical representation, embodied and etched in a messy room, a small kitchen with cheap meals, in a common area where fantasies are broached and decisions are reached. Nothing forms a community, a collective identity and a sense of fighting for something other than oneself like a shared space and a shared story.
Wonderwall is streaming as part of Jff+ Independent Cinema
The shared space in this case is the Konoe dormitory, where students from a university in Kyoto since the 1900s have stayed and lived. Residing in the dormitory has become a tradition in itself, as the young occupants here create their own rules, rules that celebrate their idiosyncrasies, their non-conforming spirit, their own kind of harmonious chaos. The university administration, however, wants to demolish the dorm,...
Wonderwall is streaming as part of Jff+ Independent Cinema
The shared space in this case is the Konoe dormitory, where students from a university in Kyoto since the 1900s have stayed and lived. Residing in the dormitory has become a tradition in itself, as the young occupants here create their own rules, rules that celebrate their idiosyncrasies, their non-conforming spirit, their own kind of harmonious chaos. The university administration, however, wants to demolish the dorm,...
- 1/7/2023
- by Purple Romero
- AsianMoviePulse
How much our lives can get destroyed just by plain coincidence or the particularly bad string of coincidences? It is an ages-long philosophical question that has been treated in movies practically from the beginning. Japanese auteur Koji Fukada, however, does not take the usual path to tell this kind of story. It is not a mystery or a thriller, it is a psychological drama focused on one singular character in the midst of the turmoil. “A Girl Missing” premiered in Locarno and we caught it at Viennale.
“A Girl Missing” is screening at Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema
The character here is Ichiko, whom we meet as Risa Uchida, a widow looking for a change in her life. She says that directly to her hairdresser Kazumichi (Ikematsu Sosuke), explaining that she chose him because of his last name he shares with her late husband. The two of them...
“A Girl Missing” is screening at Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema
The character here is Ichiko, whom we meet as Risa Uchida, a widow looking for a change in her life. She says that directly to her hairdresser Kazumichi (Ikematsu Sosuke), explaining that she chose him because of his last name he shares with her late husband. The two of them...
- 2/7/2022
- by Marko Stojiljković
- AsianMoviePulse
A Girl Missing director Kôji Fukada seated in front of posters for James Crump’s Antonio Lopez 1970: Sex Fashion & Disco and Atsuko Hirayanagi’s Oh Lucy! at Film Movement Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
Kôji Fukada’s A Girl Missing (Yokogao), shot by Ken'ichi Negishi (Akihiro Toda’s Neko Ni Mikan), stars Mariko Tsutsui with Mikako Ichikawa, Miyu Ogawa, Mitsuru Fukikoshi, Sôsuke Ikematsu, and Ren Sudo. Fukada’s Harmonium won the Cannes Un Certain Regard Jury Prize in 2016 and he is also the director of The Man From The Sea and Au Revoir L’Été. At Film Movement in New York I spoke with Kôji about his love of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, how some say his heroine resembles Golden Globe winner Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker in Todd Phillips’ movie, unravelling societal conventions, and what he did to create the sound design in post-production.
Motoko (Mikako Ichikawa) with Ichiko (Mariko...
Kôji Fukada’s A Girl Missing (Yokogao), shot by Ken'ichi Negishi (Akihiro Toda’s Neko Ni Mikan), stars Mariko Tsutsui with Mikako Ichikawa, Miyu Ogawa, Mitsuru Fukikoshi, Sôsuke Ikematsu, and Ren Sudo. Fukada’s Harmonium won the Cannes Un Certain Regard Jury Prize in 2016 and he is also the director of The Man From The Sea and Au Revoir L’Été. At Film Movement in New York I spoke with Kôji about his love of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, how some say his heroine resembles Golden Globe winner Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker in Todd Phillips’ movie, unravelling societal conventions, and what he did to create the sound design in post-production.
Motoko (Mikako Ichikawa) with Ichiko (Mariko...
- 1/6/2020
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
How much our lives can get destroyed just by plain coincidence or the particularly bad string of coincidences? It is an ages-long philosophical question that has been treated in movies practically from the beginning. Japanese auteur Koji Fukada, however, does not take the usual path to tell this kind of story. It is not a mystery or a thriller, it is a psychological drama focused on one singular character in the midst of the turmoil. “A Girl Missing” premiered in Locarno and we caught it at Viennale.
“A Girl Missing” is screening at Viennale
The character here is Ichiko, whom we meet as Risa Uchida, a widow looking for a change in her life. She says that directly to her hairdresser Kazumichi (Ikematsu Sosuke), explaining that she chose him because of his last name he shares with her late husband. The two of them commence a friendly relationship that might turn into something more romantic,...
“A Girl Missing” is screening at Viennale
The character here is Ichiko, whom we meet as Risa Uchida, a widow looking for a change in her life. She says that directly to her hairdresser Kazumichi (Ikematsu Sosuke), explaining that she chose him because of his last name he shares with her late husband. The two of them commence a friendly relationship that might turn into something more romantic,...
- 11/9/2019
- by Marko Stojiljković
- AsianMoviePulse
The titular hero of this movie, Seiri-chan, is the menstrual cycle; “seiri” means literally period and “–chan” is the Japanese suffix for cute girls and children (and pets), hence the English “Little Miss Period”. The original source of the film is a manga that in record time has been whipping up a storm of consensus within Japanese female audiences of all ages.
“Little Miss Period” is screening at Camera Japan 2019
First appeared as a web manga before moving into printed form for major publisher Kadokawa’s “Monthly Comic Beam”, Seiri-chan, surprisingly, is the brainchild of a man, Ken Koyama, who seems to have researched thoroughly his target audience. His anthropomorphized menstrual cycle is a giant heart-shaped “pink thing” with disturbingly wide-open eyes, big sensual lips, red pants and a medical cross as a nose. Moreover, the beast is armed with a humongous syringe, ready to withdraw massive amounts of blood out of her preys,...
“Little Miss Period” is screening at Camera Japan 2019
First appeared as a web manga before moving into printed form for major publisher Kadokawa’s “Monthly Comic Beam”, Seiri-chan, surprisingly, is the brainchild of a man, Ken Koyama, who seems to have researched thoroughly his target audience. His anthropomorphized menstrual cycle is a giant heart-shaped “pink thing” with disturbingly wide-open eyes, big sensual lips, red pants and a medical cross as a nose. Moreover, the beast is armed with a humongous syringe, ready to withdraw massive amounts of blood out of her preys,...
- 9/28/2019
- by Adriana Rosati
- AsianMoviePulse
The intriguing ambiguity suffusing Kôji Fukada’s “Harmonium” returns to a certain degree in “A Girl Missing,” but this time the writer-director neglects to reinforce onscreen relationships, resulting in a disappointing and unmoving drama of how a good woman’s life is shattered by keeping quiet. Thankfully, actress Mariko Tsutsui, who played the wife in “Harmonium,” exudes an intriguing off-kilter combination of sympathy and mystery as a visiting nurse whose world is changed drastically when her nephew abducts a girl she’s been mentoring, yet unfortunately the lack of script support undercuts audience involvement far more than the parallel timelines. Fukada’s reputation on the festival circuit guarantees a certain amount of play but is unlikely to win the director new fans.
An excellent opening ramps up expectations through a gratifying combination of confident filmmaking and skilled performances, playing on the potential for intimacy between a hairdresser and a first-time client.
An excellent opening ramps up expectations through a gratifying combination of confident filmmaking and skilled performances, playing on the potential for intimacy between a hairdresser and a first-time client.
- 8/11/2019
- by Jay Weissberg
- Variety Film + TV
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