10 Films you shouldn’t miss at the Japanese Film Festival Australia

By Asian Film Festival on October 2, 2021 • ( Leave a comment )

These are ten film you shouldn’t miss at the Japanese Film Festival Australia which will tour between Canberra, Perth, Brisbane, Melbourne, and Sydney from October 28th until December 5th, 2021.

Dates & Venues:
Canberra | 28 October – 2 November, 2021
– Palace Electric Cinemas
– NFSA

Perth | 4 – 7 November, 2021
– Palace Raine Square

Brisbane | 11 – 21 November, 2021
– Palace Barracks Cinemas
– Palace James St Cinemas

Melbourne | 18 November – 5 December, 2021
– Palace Kino Cinemas
– ACMI

Sydney | 25 November – 5 December, 2021
– Palace Norton St Cinema
– Palace Central Cinema
– Palace Verona Cinema
– Palace Chauvel Cinema

For more information please visit: https://japanesefilmfestival.net

– Recommended Films –

**Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes** by Junta Yamaguchi – Japan | 2020 – 70 minutes
**Cast**: Aki Asakura and Kazunari Tosa

After a regular day of work at his café, Katō hears his computer screen talking to him, and is met with a bewildering sight—it’s another version of himself, but from two minutes into the future! When future Katо̄ instructs him to check the TV in his café, he finds himself replicating the exact actions he just saw“other Katō” doing. It’s not long before he realises that the two screens are mysteriously linked by a two-minute delay (JFFAustralia).

Trailer:

**It’s a Summer Film!** by Sōshi Matsumoto – Japan | 2021 – 97 minutes
**Cast**: Marika Itō, Yuumi Kawai and Daichi Kaneko

School’s out for summer and a nerdy sci-fi and samurai film fan trio is making Hadashi’s debut, DIY cinematic masterpiece—the ultimate teen tribute to her old school samurai spirit heroes! With her bubbly film club rival in the director’s chair of a cheesy romance film, Hadashi (Barefoot) turns her film fantasies into a battle of honour, samurai-style (JFFAustralia).

Trailer:

**Little Nights, Little Love** by Rikiya Imaizumi – Japan | 2019 – 119 minutes
**Cast**: Haruma Miura, Mikako Tabe and Taizo Harada

Sato is an employee conducting a survey in front of Sendai Station. Saki takes the survey and the two ultimately become a couple. 10 years later, Sato proposes to Saki on the occasion of their 10th anniversary (JFFAustralia).

Screening Dates & Venues:
This film will be available to stream via JFF Online from November 15th – 21st, 2021

Trailer:

**Not Quite Dead** by Shinji Hamasaki – Japan | 2020 – 93 minutes
**Cast**: Suzu Hirose, Shinichi Tsutsumi and Lily Franky

Metalhead singer Nanase (Suzu Hirose, Chihayafuru, JFF 2016) can’t catch a break–her emotionally clueless widowed dad, Kei, is expecting her to quit the band and get serious by joining his big-time pharmaceutical company, while she wishes out loud that he’d just… drop dead (JFFAustralia).

Trailer:

**Sumodo, The Successor of Samurai** by Sakata Eiji – Japan | 2020 – 104 minutes
**Cast**: Gōeidō Gōtarō and Ryūden Gōshi

Moving and insightful, Eiji Sakata’s documentary offers an eye-opening look into the intimate workings of what it means to be a professional sumo wrestler in modern Japan. Filmed over the course of six months, Sumodo follows the lives of two wrestlers, Gōeidō Gōtarō and Ryūden Gōshi, as they prepare to battle it out on the legendary stage of Ryōgoku Kokugikan (JFFAustralia).

Trailer:

**The Great Passage** by Yuya Ishi – Japan | 2013 – 133 minutes
**Cast**: Ryuhei Matsuda, Aoi Miyazaki and Joe Odagiri

Drama about the passion of an editor who struggles to create a dictionary, as depicted over a fifteen-year period. Publishing house salesman Majime has an earnestness about him that sets him apart from his peers. But he has a discerning sensibility when it comes to language, which lands him in the dictionary editorial department. He ends up editing “The Great Passage,” a huge dictionary with 240,000 entries (JFFAustralia).

Screening Dates & Venues:
This film will be available to stream via JFF Online from November 15th – 21st, 2021

Trailer:

**Tora-san in Goto** by Masaru Oura – Japan | 2016 – 114 minutes
**Cast**: Torao Inuzuka

A documentary shot from 1993 and over 22 years chronicled a large family who make their living as udon noodle makers on the Goto Archipelago in Nagasaki Prefecture. Inuzuka Torao, known as “Tora of Goto” runs an udon noodle making business on the Goto Archipelago. Everyday, his seven children wake up at 5am, help with the business for an hour, then head for school. Over the 22 years the documentary follows them, the children all grow up (JFFAustralia).

Screening Dates & Venues:
This film will be available to stream via JFF Online from November 15th – 21st, 2021

Trailer:

**True Mothers** by Naomi Kawase – Japan | 2020 – 139 minutes
**Cast**: Hiromi Nagasaku, Arata Iura and Aju Makita

Well-to-do professional couple Satoko (Hiromi Nagasaku, Rebirth) and her husband Kiyokazu (Arata Iura, Ping-Pong) seem to have it all. But in reality, the pair yearn for a child yet struggle to conceive, eventually abandoning any hope of a miracle due to Kiyokazu’s infertility problems. Their faith is suddenly restored when the couple happen upon an adoption agency, and the arrival of baby boy Asato offers them a real chance at parenthood. Six years together go by when they are suddenly confronted by an unfamiliar woman, who claims to be Asato’s birth mother and demands him back (JFFAustralia).

Trailer:

**Under the Open Sky** by Miwa Nishikawa – Japan | 2021 – 126 minutes
**Cast**: Kōji Yakusho, Taiga Nakano and Masami Nagasawa

Life behind bars has hardened ex-yakuza Mikami (Kōji Yakusho). Released after his 13-year murder sentence, feeling overlooked and desperate for independence, he sets out to tell his story and find his long-lost mother by teaming up with young TV director Tsunoda.

Mikami’s brash attitude and altercations with the outside world provide plenty of drama for Tsunoda’s project, but friction grows behind the scenes. Returning to society tests Mikami’s patience, and reveals his skewed version of justice (JFFAustralia).

Trailer:

**Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy** by Ryūsuke Hamaguchi – Japan | 2021 – 121 minutes
**Cast**: Kotone Furukawa, Katsuki Mori and Fusako Urabe

Charming and unpredictable, Ryūsuke Hamaguchi’s Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy is the pleasingly cohesive juxtaposition of three stories with no apparent connection, describing intimate slices of life filtered through the eyes of modern Japanese women. Hamaguchi expertly guides his complex female protagonists through a path of redemption and epiphany, with emotionally authentic exchanges between the characters playing out like poetry on the screen. Meiko (Kotone Furukawa), Nao (Katsuki Mori) and Moka’s (Fusako Urabe) fully-realised identities and narratives all share a common thread, echoing themes of love and loss, desire and opportunity, emotional burden and relief. With coincidence playing a major role in all three stories, they leave viewers to ponder how the right and wrong paths taken in life are sometimes simply shaped by chance (JFFAustralia).

Trailer: