Global stories. Digital first.
Topic
Exploring the relationship between people and place, new documentary “Okinawa Saudade,” playing at the 39th Tokyo International Film Festival as part of its Nippon Cinema Now selection, was born from director Matsubayashi Yoju’s time with a Brazilian community of Okinawan immigrants some 10 years ago. The film zooms in on the latest generation of Okinawan […]
Jesse Eisenberg’s “The Debut,” starring Julianne Moore as a shy housewife who is cast in a community theater musical and transforms into a zealous Method actor, has been set as the opening film of the 23rd Marrakech International Film Festival. Eisenberg and Moore are both expected to be on hand for the out-of-competition gala. The […]
German director and screenwriter Isabelle Stever’s “I Rarely Wake Up Dreaming” has won the Tokyo International Film Festival’s Ethical Film Award. The award, set up in 2023 with sponsor Sumitomo Corporation, highlights films that shed light on issues such as the environment, poverty and discrimination. A jury picks the winner from three nominees drawn from […]
Two directors with films at this year’s Tokyo International Film Festival said they once kept impending or new motherhood hidden from the people they worked with, at a festival talk on raising children while making films. Belgium-based Teodora Ana Mihai, whose “Heysel 85” plays in competition, shared the stage with Japanese director Sode Yukiko, whose […]
Japanese director Kadowaki Kōhei’s animated feature “We Are Aliens” has won the Kau Ka Hōkū (Shooting Star) Award at the 46th Hawai’i International Film Festival, which handed out its jury prizes at an awards reception at the Halekulani Hotel in Waikīkī on Nov. 1. Presented by Hawaiian Airlines, the prize is reserved for an international […]
Isabelle Huppert vampire film “The Blood Countess” lost as much as 20 minutes against the wishes of its director, Ulrike Ottinger, the veteran German filmmaker said at the Tokyo International Film Festival, which is hosting a retrospective of her work. In “The Blood Countess” (“Die Blutgräfin”), Huppert plays a vampire countess who resurfaces in present-day […]
Chinese artist and filmmaker Sun Xun never expected “Magic Atlas” to become the first animated feature selected for the Tokyo International Film Festival’s competition. “I never thought of ‘Magic Atlas’ as an animated film. To me, it brings together many art forms. Animation is simply the label we use for its form. I’m glad people […]
Jakarta World Cinema aims to bring back its First Feature Competition next year, open to filmmakers from around the world and judged by an international jury. This year’s edition did not accept submissions. The competition was put on hold because of the difficulty of assembling an international jury. “[Previously] we’ve only had Indonesian judges,” festival […]
A lack of funding, and ignorance in the institutions that control it, keeps women at an inherent disadvantage in the film industry, Afghan director Shahrbanoo Sadat said at a Tokyo International Film Festival talk on the future of women’s cinema. “The discrimination did not start at the festival, but it started at the development level,” […]
Unspoken emotional wounds linger throughout “Between Us,” Japanese director Matsumura Shingo’s new film playing in the Tokyo International Film Festival’s Nippon Cinema Now section, its strand for Japanese films. The film follows Makoto and Kasumi, childhood best friends who drift apart after an incident on a joint family camping trip and reunite six years later […]
Cristian Mungiu’s Palme d’Or winner “Fjord” opened the fifth edition of Jakarta World Cinema at CGV Grand Indonesia. Dan Adrian Bălănescu, Romania’s ambassador to Indonesia, said he was proud of the film, which is Romania’s submission for the international feature Oscar at the 2027 Academy Awards, and hoped it would speak to local audiences. “Many […]
