The Nippon Connection Film Festival (Germany) will give the Nippon Honor Award to the renowned actor Masatoshi Nagase. The festival will take place from May 24 – 29, 2022 in Frankfurt.

The Nippon Connection Film Festival will give the 6th Nippon Honor Award, tribute to outstanding personalities for their special contributions to Japanese cinema, to renowned actor Masatoshi Nagase, who has become famous for his reserved portrayal of close-lipped and torn characters ever since his first role in P. P. Rider by Shinji Somai (1983). Nagase gained international recognition with films like Mystery Train (1989) and Paterson (2016) by Jim Jarmusch, as well as Cold Fever (1995) by Fridrik Thor Fridriksson. Besides working with filmmakers such as Sion Sono, Gakuryu Ishii, and Yoji Yamada, he has also collaborated with Japanese female director Naomi Kawase. For his role in Kawase’s Sweet Bean (2015), he was awarded the prize for Best Leading Actor at the 37th Yokohama Film Festival.

This year, several films with Nagase can be seen at the Nippon Connection Film Festival as German premieres, among them Under The Stars (2020) by Tatsushi Omori, in which Nagase plays a family father who has joined an esoteric sect. In Keita Fujimoto’s Just The Two of Us (2020), he portrays a paraplegic finding new hope through his blind nurse. Jim Jarmusch’s cult film Mystery Train will be shown as a 35mm copy at a special screening in the Cinema at the DFF – Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum. Nagase will participate in Q&As after the screenings and look back at his career in an extensive talk session. The award ceremony will take place at Künstlerhaus Mousonturm on May 29, 2022.

We remind readers that the 22nd Nippon Connection Film Festival will take place from May 24 – 29, 2022 in Frankfurt. The programme will feature around 100 short and feature-length films. he supporting program offers insights into Japanese culture with numerous workshops, lectures, and concerts. Whereas the last two editions took place exclusively online due to the pandemic, this year the festival will return to on-site venues. Additionally, a portion of the film program will be available via video-on-demand (in Germany only) from May 30 to June 6, 2022.

About the festival:
The Japanese Film Festival Nippon Connection is organized by the 70-member, largely voluntary, team of the non-profit association Nippon Connection e.V. It is under the patronage of Angela Dorn (Hessian Minister for Science and Art), Peter Feldmann (Lord Mayor of Frankfurt am Main) and the Consulate General of Japan in Frankfurt am Main. Since its founding in 2000, Nippon Connection has become the world’s largest platform for Japanese cinema and the most popular film festival in Hesse.

For more information please visit: https://nipponconnection.com

*Post image taken from FB Page masatoshi.earl.nagase*