Japan Society screens more than 30 contemporary Japanese films in 12 days starting July 8, celebrating the 19th year of JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film

JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film 2026 Powered by Canon

Wednesday, July 8 through Sunday, July 19, 2026

Japan Society – 333 E. 47th Street (between 1st and 2nd Avenues)

Admission Information & Pricing

Centerpiece: $35 Nonmembers | $32 Students & Seniors | $28 Members
Screenings with Receptions: $26 Nonmembers | $23 Students & Seniors | $20 Members
Screenings with Intros: $24 Nonmembers | $22 Students & Seniors | $19 Members
All Other Feature Screenings: $20 Nonmembers | $18 Students & Seniors | $16 Members
Screenings Under 60 Minutes: $16 Nonmembers | $14 Students & Seniors | $12 Members
New Directions in Japanese Cinema: Free with RSVP
Festival Pass: $350 Member Exclusive
All-Access Pass: $1,000 Nonmembers | $800 Members

North America’s largest festival of contemporary Japanese film returns to Japan Society on July 8 for its 19th year. JAPAN CUTS Powered by Canon is a summer extravaganza of more than 30 curated films from across Japan featuring major award winners, indie darlings, up-and-coming filmmakers, restorations, documentaries, short films, anime, and more. A showcase of the latest in Japanese cinema, Japan Society is the place to see both today’s most popular actors and directors as well as tomorrow’s pioneering talent.

JAPAN CUTS will present lauded actress Suzu Hirose with theCUT ABOVE Award for Outstanding Achievement in Film and host the New York Premiere of A Pale View of Hills starring Hirose as the Centerpiece Film, and the festival will conclude with legendary director Hirokazu Koreeda, who will appear in person for the North American Premiere of Sheep in the Box, the Closing Film.

The main category of JAPAN CUTS showcases a broad selection of contemporary Japanese cinema across vibrant genres and styles. From deep dramas and tender, coming-of-age tales to action, avant-garde, and anime, the Feature Slate is a window to the past year of Japan’s cinematic storytelling.

For more information and to purchase tickets, please visit Japan Society’s website.

Sold-Out Screenings

There is no online or email waitlist for sold-out screenings. Those wishing to attend sold-out screenings can visit the Japan Society Box Office in person at 333 East 47th Street. A physical waitlist will begin 30 minutes before each sold-out event. Ten minutes prior to the screening, any unused tickets will be made available and can be purchased by those present in the order in which they arrived. Please note: There is no guarantee that tickets will be available for sold-out events.

Schedule

Wednesday, July 8

Tokyo Taxi

Followed by Opening Night Reception

Wednesday, July 8 at 6:00 p.m. SOLD OUT

A remake of the French drama Driving Madeleine, Tokyo Taxi marks veteran Tora-san director and Shochiku stalwart Yoji Yamada’s 91st feature, reuniting him with long-standingcollaborator Chieko Baisho, who has worked with him since her film debut in 1963.

After a nightshift, cab driver Koji (Takuya Kimura) is called in to cover for a long-distance booking. Arriving at Shibamata (a familiar site for Tora-san fans), Koji picks up Baisho’s feisty and elegant Sumire, an elderly woman bound for Yokohama on one last trip. Sumire asks for a detour through parts of Tokyo, a farewell tour that illustrates Sumire’s life story, inseparable from the changing city itself.

With all the hallmarks of Yamada’s life-affirming, sentimental cinema, Tokyo Taxi is remarkably faithful to the successful formula of the filmmaker’s half-century-plus career—a potent swansong for the (yet unretired) filmmaker and his longtime muse.

Reception music by NYC-based Japanese band Twisty BonBon and presented by The Globus Family. Reception food and drink provided by Lady M, Sapporo, and ITO EN.

Thursday, July 9

Leave the Cat Alone

Thursday, July 9 at 6:00 p.m.

The debut feature of Daisuke Shigaya, Leave the Cat Alone took seven years for the filmmaker to complete, weaving scenes shot seven or so years prior as vague memories set before the film’s present-day setting.

Maiko, an emerging photographer, and her husband, Mori, an unsuccessful musician, struggle to maintain their languishing relationship. An unassuming domestic drama with deep emotional range, Leave the Cat Alone unfolds across three days and two nights in the couple’s lives as Mori encounters an old flame, transporting him back into residual memories, lingering regrets and nostalgia for a time before the growing chasms of a long-term love.

Leave the Cat Alone is part of JAPAN CUTS’s Next Generation category. One film in this category will win the Next Generation Prize presented by VIPO. The winning filmmaker will receive $3,000, generously donated by VIPO to help fund their next work.

White Flowers and Fruits

Thursday, July 9 at 8:30 p.m.

Casting a pallid, muted gloom over its delicate cast of adolescent schoolgirls, White Flowers and Fruits marks an auspicious debut for newcomer Yukari Sakamoto.

On the grounds of a secluded all-girls boarding school, a popular student inexplicably leaps to her death. Questioning the circumstances of her sudden suicide, two classmates cope with the unfathomable loss of a peer and the inexpressible emotions left within them.

In the tradition of Shusuke Kaneko’s Summer Vacation 1999 and Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock, Sakamoto’s Gothic study is both spectral and sapphic, playing on classical bildungsroman motifs in its atmospheric meditation on the death of innocence.

White Flowers and Fruits is part of JAPAN CUTS’s Next Generation category. One film in this category will win the Next Generation Prize presented by VIPO. The winning filmmaker will receive $3,000, generously donated by VIPO to help fund their next work.

Friday, July 10

Cocoon

Friday, July 10 at 6:00 p.m.

Dir. Yukimitsu Ina, | 2025 | 60 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Hikari Mitsushima, Marika Ito, Yoko Hikasa, Rena Motomura, Chinatsu Akasaki, Aoi Koga, Yume Miyamoto, Izumi Aoyagi, Miyuki Sawashiro, Umeka Shoji North American Premiere

Animated by Sasayuri, a studio founded by Ghibli alum Hitomi Tateno, Cocoon features the profound talents of both veteran and new animators tobring Machiko Kyo’s wartime manga to life. Commissioned by NHK to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of the war, Cocoon shines a light on an often overlooked tragedy: the Himeyuri students, a group of young girls compelled to support the Japanese army on Okinawa.

Classes have long been replaced by labor, and the girls are soon assigned to a hospital that is no more than a cave. When the girls are abandoned by the adults, what path will they choose?

The Last Blossom

Friday, July 10 at 7:30 p.m.

From director Baku Kinoshita, best known for the anime series Odd Taxi, comes a tear-jerking tale of love, perseverance, redemption, and a talking plant.

An elderly prisoner named Akutsu (Kaoru Kobayashi) is serving a life sentence and awaits a lonely death—until a voice calls out. This voice belongs to a flower (Pierre Taki) who asks the inmate about his life. Together, the two reflect on Akutsu’s innocent days, the good intentions that led him to a life of crime, the people he cared about, and that maybe—just maybe—these people can still blossom.

Rex: A Dinosaur’s Story

Friday, July 10 at 9:30 p.m.

Dir. Haruki Kadokawa | 1993 | 106 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Yumi Adachi, Shinobu Otake, Tsunehiko Watase

Industry disruptor and mogul Haruki Kadokawa, who revolutionized the field of film production with his media mix strategy, delivered this E.T.-adjacent curio of family entertainment to the chagrin of critics and the delight of the public—until his sudden and very public fall from grace. With creature effects by FX maestro Carlo Rambaldi (Alien, E.T., Possession), Kadokawa’s dinosaur pictureremainsone of the most expensive Japanese films of all time—and Shochiku’s highest-grossing release at the time—opening in theaters only a month after Jurassic Park.

The plot, strategically measured in a three-act structure, followsChie (Yumi Adachi), the young daughter of a paleontologist, who befriends a Tyrannosaurus hatchling after discovering a dinosaur egg with her father. Rarely seen outside Japan and a cult item abroad, Rex remains a fascinating relic of Kadokawa’s once-dominant brand of commercial filmmaking.

Saturday, July 11

BRAND NEW LOVE

Saturday, July 11 at 12:00 p.m.

Couple Yuiko and Kenichi undertake a short trip as their relationship starts to break down, watching over a relative’s antique shop in a last-ditch effort to save their deteriorating partnership. Bickering and resentful, the two take time away from each other by manning the shop—offering director Ryuichi Iwakura the chance to observe them quietly, depicting the dissolution of their partnership and their growing divide through subtle modes of expression. A remarkably understated film, BRAND NEW LOVE was awarded PIA’s Runner Up Award.

BRAND NEW LOVE is part of JAPAN CUTS’s Next Generation category. One film in this category will win the Next Generation Prize presented by VIPO. The winning filmmaker will receive $3,000, generously donated by VIPO to help fund their next work.

SAI: disaster

Saturday, July 11 at 2:30 p.m.

Directing duo Gogatsu’s SAI: disaster offers a theatrical edit of their chilling SAI serial, restructuring its initial six-part form into a single, disquieting affair.

Four individuals, unrelated and living in entirely different regions of the country, face a nameless man existing on their peripheries; his doppelgängers, or disguises, take on various roles in their lives—a barber, a cram-school teacher, a trucker—and herald death in their wake.

With the pitch-perfect casting of Teruyuki Kagawa (Creepy, Tokyo Sonata) as a nebulous omen of catastrophe, Gogatsu’s picture operates at a terrifying register, mixing slow-burn procedural with J-Horror dread. Atmospheric and unnerving, SAI: disaster presupposes life’s many tragedies as part of the natural order—mere “acts of God” enacted by a harbinger of chaos.

Shuffle

Saturday, July 11 at 5:30 p.m.

Initially filmed as an unsanctioned adaptation of Katsuhiro Otomo’s manga Run, Shuffle is an attempt by Ishii to “sketch a man’s entire life through only one motif: running.”

Chased through the streets of Tokyo by a police detective, a punk sprints and hurtles to some unknown terminus as the past rushes in. Panting, wheezing and gasping for one more breath of air, he musters all he can for a final course.

A stream of consciousness invoked by physical exertion, this film is considered by Ishii to be “a portrait of my generation.”

The Master of Shiatsu

Saturday, July 11 after the screening of Shuffle

The inaugural work of Ishii’s spiritual phase, TheMaster of Shiatsu emerged after a period of setbacks and disappointments, with Ishii finding the film to be a “kind of therapy” after the collapse of several unrealized projects.

The cackling laugh of a mysterious shiatsumaster (Tokujiro Namikoshi, the “father of shiatsu”) initiates this transformative uncoupling from reality as a shiatsu session imparts strange, astral properties to a young woman.

A key transitional work conjuring Ishii’s own hallucinatory vision of enlightenment, this metaphysical anodyne unlocks a vast, latent network of energy flow—visualizing streams of light through the urban fog of late-eighties Japan.

JUNK WORLD

Saturday, July 11 at 7:00 p.m.

A prequel to Takahide Hori’s outrageous, word-of-mouth marvel JUNK HEAD (2017), JUNK WORLD expands upon its predecessor’s absurdist stop-motion biosphere of Giger-esque, cenobite-inspired lifeforms, grotesque humor, and worldbuilding mythos.

Sent to explore an unexplained anomaly detected deep within the underground trenches, an expedition of humans and Mulligans—artificial beings once used as a labor force by humanity—are attacked by a radical sect of shibari-tied, leather chaps-adorning cultists.

Alongside a snaking and ambitious narrative, Hori populates his subterranea with a New World’s flora and fauna, bearing evolutionary processes beyond comprehension; violent, unpredictable aberrations and cannibalistic permutations; and entire civilizations sprung up simultaneously across minutes and millennia.

Gosh!!

Saturday, July 11 at 9:30 p.m.

Police officer Ippei Aoba (Sosuke Ikematsu) leads a normal life; except his dog, Oliver, is a womanizing, middle-aged drunk in a dog suit (Joe Odagiri). Together, with an all-star ensemble including Masatoshi Nagase and Koichi Sato, they lead a wondrously bizarre escapade featuring doors across time and space, a town obsessed with takoyaki, a tiny fairy, a Bollywood-style dance number, and more. Maybe Aoba doesn’t lead a normal life after all.

Based on a TV series by Joe Odagiri, Gosh!! is written, directed, and edited by Odagiri. And, again, stars Joe Odagiri in a dog suit.

Sunday, July 12

Rewrite

Sunday, July 12 at 2:30 p.m.

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is a classic of Japanese literature, one that has been famously retold across Japanese media and influenced a whole genre of “time leap” stories. Rewrite is an homage to this classic, but all is not exactly as it appears.

Transfer student Yasuhiko (Kei Adachi) is a boy from 300 years in the future who has come to visit the past after falling in love with a novel he’s read. When Yasuhiko shares his secret with Miyuki (Elaiza Ikeda), she comes to learn from her own future self that she must pen this very book and spends the next ten years writing the novel to complete the time loop. However, Yasuhiko didn’t tell Miyuki the full story.

Charming, funny, and unexpected, Rewrite is a delightful reinvention that turns tropes on their head and will keep you guessing until the very last chapter.

Sato and Sato

Sunday, July 12 at 5:30 p.m.

Chihiro Amano’s follow-up to Mrs. Noisy (winner of the 2020 JAPAN CUTS Audience Award) details the unraveling of a marriage, cutting across 15 years of a couple’s lives.

Sachi Sato (Yukino Kishii) and Tamotsu Sato meet in college and begin a life together until their early career plans are upended: Sachi, who took on studying for the bar exam in solidarity with Tamotsu, ends up passing while he fails. Inverting gender roles, Sato and Sato addresses the fracturing divides of marriage to devastating effect, as career ambitions are halted and frustrations pile on.

Impartial and sensitive, Amano’s empathetic treatise is a frank and intimate study of life’s great disappointments: the unkept promise of a life together.

Our Little Sister

Introduction by Suzu Hirose

Sunday, July 12 at 8:00 p.m. SOLD OUT

Dir. Hirokazu Koreeda | 2015 | 126 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Haruka Ayase, Masami Nagasawa, Kaho, Suzu Hirose

Hirokazu Koreeda’s resonant Our Little Sister forgoes a traditional plot in favor of an abundance of slice-of-life vignettes and everyday incidents.

Three twenty-something sisters—Sachi, Yoshino, and Chika—live together in their grandmother’s old family home in Kamakura’s seaside idyll. At their estranged father’s funeral in Yamagata, the sisters meet their teenage half-sister Suzu (Suzu Hirose), whom they capriciously invite to move in with them.

Koreeda’s blissful domestic drama tracks the sisters’ lives as seasons inevitably pass, enriched by the growing bonds of sisterhood and familial understanding.

JAPAN CUTS respectfully requests attendees not ask Ms. Hirose for photos or autographs. Ms. Hirose will not be posing for personal photographs or signing autographs at this event.

Monday, July 13

A Pale View of Hills

Centerpiece Film with Suzu Hirose

CUT ABOVE Award Ceremony, Q&A with Suzu Hirose, and Reception

Monday, July 13 at 6:00 p.m. – SOLD OUT

Based on Nobel Prize-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro’s debut novel and written, directed, and edited by Kei Ishikawa, A Pale View of Hills follows Etsuko, portrayed stunningly by both Suzu Hirose and Yoh Yoshida across the passage of years, as she shares her postwar memories with her daughter. A story spanning 30 years, it recounts sacrifice, tragedy, and the stories we tell ourselves to survive.

A delicately shot and acted Japanese-British-Polish co-production, A Pale View of Hills had its World Premiere at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. It realizes the words of one of the world’s most gifted writers and spotlights the talents of one of Japan’s finest actresses. JAPAN CUTS will present this story of courage of loss for the first time in New York with actress Suzu Hirose live on-stage. Hirose will receive the festival’s highest honor, the CUT ABOVE Award, at this screening.

JAPAN CUTS respectfully requests attendees not ask Ms. Hirose for photos or autographs. Ms. Hirose will not be posing for personal photographs or signing autographs at this event.

Tuesday, July 14

New Directions in Japanese Cinema

Tuesday, July 14 at 6:00 p.m.

A Wavy Girl
Dir. Natsuka Yashiro | 2025 | 30 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Nao Yamato, Sosuke Ogata | International Premiere
Maru (Nao Yamato) is a high school girl living in the countryside. Her lunch is always pancakes, a routine as messy as her naturally curly hair. When Sunao (Sosuke Ogata), a handsome boy from Tokyo, transfers to her class and joins her part-time job, they start riding their bikes home together. Despite his striking appearance, Maru senses something unspoken.

An Overflow
Dir. Shun Tsujii | 2025 | 29 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Riku Tsuji, Mana Asaki, Fuku Kondo, Rei Matsunaga | International Premiere
Fukuro (Riku Tsuji) quits his office job to pursue illustration and takes up a part-time role as a pool lifeguard to make ends meet. Though a poor swimmer, Fukuro’s days are calm until a former aspiring pro arrives and forces him to ask: Is his life moving forward or standing still?

The End of What Goes Around
Dir. Tomonari Kamobayashi | 2025 | 30 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Kinari Hirano, Raiku, Yoshi Sakou | International Premiere
A traditional camera shop in the Kanto region. The owner, Fumio Sugihara (Yoshi Sakou), and his employee, Minoru Fukaya (Kinari Hirano), have built a supportive relationship like that of a real father and son. Yet, one day, Fumio’s actual son returns. He had left to pursue a career in photography and now threatens Minoru’s place in the shop.

The Woman Who Repeats
Dir. Ere Nakada | 2025 | 30 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Ayumi Ito, Rena Tanaka, Yoko Imamoto, Riho Sato, Shohei Abe | International Premiere
Isolated office worker Takako (Ayumi Ito) secretly steals from others. Her world is upended, though, when a colleague (Rena Tanaka) catches her in the act, but rather than reprimand Takako, she simply turns and walks away. Haunted by this, Takako becomes fixated on her witness, an obsession that grows into an uneasy intimacy between two drifting souls: a woman who steals out of loneliness, and another yearning to discard all she owns.

A Wavy Girl, An Overflow, The End of What Goes Around, and The Woman Who Repeats are part of JAPAN CUTS’s New Directions in Japanese Cinema screening. NDJC is a program commissioned by Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs and administered by VIPO (Visual Industry Promotion Organization), which funds emerging directors in Japan and provides them with a platform to showcase their talents with new short works.

Ginger Boy

Tuesday, July 14 at 9:00 p.m.

Transferring back to the Tokyo headquarters for his job at a regional bank, Kishida temporarily crashes with high school pal Kura, who works now as a filmmaker, but senses a growing disconnect between them. Claustrophobic and unnerving, Kura’s erratic lifestyle and peculiar behavior start to affect Kishida, who tries his best to support his friend.

A slow-burn, propulsive work laced with atmosphere and inventive direction, the Cannes-selected Ginger Boy is a distinct showcase of director Miki Tanaka’s craft, visually arresting and confident in its vision.

Naomi Out of Sync

Tuesday, July 14 after the screening of Ginger Boy

18-year-old Naomi lives with her older brother, Shingo, who has a developmental disability and Tourette’s, and her father, struggling to keep up with daily life, but maintains an upbeat demeanor despite her struggles at her part-time job and taking care of her brother. One day, out of frustration, Naomi accidentally hurts her brother’s feelings.

Utilizing this setup, director Fuku Nakazato delivers a lighthearted study of the two siblings with candor and empathy. Winner of the Grand Prize at the PIA Film Festival.

Ginger Boy and Naomi Out of Sync are part of JAPAN CUTS’s Next Generation category. One film in this category will win the Next Generation Prize presented by VIPO. The winning filmmaker will receive $3,000, generously donated by VIPO to help fund their next work.

Wednesday, July 15

Diamond Diplomacy

Q&A with Director Yuriko Gamo Romer, author Robert Fitts, and MLB Legend Masanori “Mashi” Murakami

Wednesday, July 15 at 6:00 p.m.

Diamond Diplomacy explores the long and complex relationship between the U.S. and Japan through the shared love of baseball and the powerful cultural and diplomatic bridge the game has provided across generations—from the first introduction of baseball in Japan to the global sensation of Shohei Ohtani. Featuring rare archival footage and interviews with baseball greats Masanori “Mashi” Murakami, Warren “Cro” Cromartie, Ichiro Suzuki, Bobby Valentine, and more.

W’s Tragedy

Wednesday, July 15 at 9:00 p.m.

W’s Tragedy racked up all the major film prizes of 1984 in Japan, a rare occurrence for Kadokawa’s pop experimentalism (often met with open revulsion by the powerful older generation of film critics).

Hiroko Yakushimaru stars as a young, aspiring stage actress who develops frightening ambitions to become a star in this self-reflexive, fascinatingly complex film.

Shinichiro Sawai, one of the great, underappreciated directors of the 1980s, masterfully follows the sometimes-mind-bending Kadokawa pattern of making films that are, in some way, always also about Kadokawa. Scored by Joe Hisaishi.

Thursday, July 16

In Their Traces

Q&A with Shigeru Kobayashi, Norio Nagakura and Saori Ninomiya

Thursday, July 16 at 6:00 p.m.

The latest documentary from Shigeru Kobayashi, who first gained recognition as Makoto Sato’s cinematographer on the legendary Minamata documentary Living on the River Agano (1992) and its sequel Memories of Agano (2005), In Their Traces tackles the difficult subject matter of sexual and physical abuse with shocking frankness in its matter-of-fact candidness. Opening with a harrowing phone call that relays a survivor’s failed suicide to the director, Kobayashi’s film is a work of utmost empathy and understanding, built on the collective testimonies of abuse survivors navigating a life after their trauma. Lensed by celebrated experimental documentarian Kaori Oda (Cenote) and stemming from Japan’s rich lineage of documentary practices, In Their Traces is a remarkable achievement.

Night Flower

Thursday, July 16 at 9:00 p.m.

From acclaimed director Eiji Uchida comes the story of Natsuki (Keiko Kitagawa) and Tamae (Misato Morita), two women on the fringes of society who find family in each other. Natsuki fled to Tokyo with her children to escape debt. She soon encounters Tamae, a struggling kickboxer, and together they sell drugs to Tokyo’s outcasts to survive. Can Natsuki and Tamae be criminals by night and lead normal lives by day? Or will all they have be dragged into the underworld and their precious found family unravel?

Misato Morita won Best Supporting Actress at this year’s Japanese Academy Awards.

Friday, July 17

Burn

Friday, July 17 at 6:00 p.m.

Makoto Nagahisa’s dark, pop-art nihilist feature stars Nana Mori as Ju-Ju, the stuttering daughter of abusive religious zealots, who escapes and joins a band of young runaway misfits in the littered commercial district of Kabukicho. Far from a haven for the broken, Ju-Ju’s “Lost Boys” fantasy turns into an inescapable underground of prostitution, drug-laced dreams, and hopelessness, fueled by the very companions she’s come to befriend.

Nagahisa’s on-brand, hyper-stylized direction—a saccharine overstimulation of formal elements, from step printing and lo-fi video footage to double dollies and fisheye lenses—breathes a perpetual exuberance into the profound bleakness of Burn’s smoldering powder-keg plot.

Tiger

Friday, July 17 at 8:30 p.m.

Inspired by real-life experiences, directorAnshul Chauhan’s socially conscious fourth feature Tiger excavates Japan’s unrepentant pressures on queer existence.

Taiga, a closeted, middle-aged gay masseur living in Tokyo, returns home to see his dying father, where he faces growing adversity: His inheritance is contingent upon marriage and children, and his sister threatens to out him, which would result in severe social consequences.

Chauhan’s focus on an aging queer generation, emphasized by Taiga’s deep desires for a sense of stability, belonging, and even fatherhood, sketches a frustrating reality: A life of acceptance is one Japan may not be able to offer.

Saturday, July 18

Numb

Saturday, July 18 at 12:00 p.m.

Daichi (Takumi Kitamura) is a boy who lost his voice because of his father’s violence. Growing up in isolation and poverty, he witnesses a transitory Japan seldom seen by the outside world. Facing hardship after hardship across his adolescence only leaves Daichi perpetually more numb, and he can do nothing but watch as the few he cares about are hurt by those who are supposed to support them and the failings of the system around them. Can Daichi break free from this painful life, or will he now scar others?

Yoyogi Johnny

Saturday, July 18 at 2:30 p.m.

An inventive and delightfully deadpan take on seishun eiga (“youth film”), Yoyogi Johnny follows the titular Johnny (singer KANON) and a band of misfits in the school’s squash club who don’t actually play squash. Yet Johnny’s days of loafing are numbered as a new girl at school captures his heart. This combined with the sudden need to compete in a squash tournament ends Johnny’s ambling ways and fills his days with misadventures.

A coming-of-age comedy ripe with eccentric characters, inventive dialogue, and preposterous situations, it’s a stirringly unique film that despite its outlandishness has a warm and uplifting heart.

SUZUKI=BAKUDAN

Saturday, July 18 at 5:00 p.m.

Based on the bestselling novel by Go Katsuhiro, SUZUKI=BAKUDAN is a big-budget blockbuster centered on Tagosaku Suzuki (Jiro Sato), a mysterious drunk who claims he can see the future. After successfully predicting a bomb will go off in Tokyo, Suzuki leads the police in a game of wits: They must solve his riddles to stop further explosions. While police fan out over the city to defuse these bombs, a young detective (Yuki Yamada) challenges Suzuki to uncover the truth behind his predictions. Is he psychic, is he lucky, is he a criminal mastermind, is he a con man? Or is he something worse?

Jiro Sato delivers a tour-de-force performance and was honored with Best Supporting Actor at this year’s Japanese Academy Awards.

Sunday, July 19

Sheep in the Box

Closing Night Film
Q&A with Hirokazu Koreeda and Reception

Sunday, July 19* at 8:00 p.m. – SOLD OUT

Taking its name from a famous passage in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince, Hirokazu Koreeda’s latest effort is a parable of speculative imagination, exploring the notion of resurrection through technological means. Set in a not-too-distant future, Sheep in the Box finds young, bereaved couple Otone and Kensuke (Haruka Ayase and comedian Daigo) welcoming home an AI-powered robot built in the image of their dead son, Kakeru. A generative reconstruction assembled from an algorithmic synthesis of photos and videos, Kakeru’s facsimile draws both skepticism and alleviation, yet it offers an opportunity to be with their “son” once more—a momentary respite from grief, or perhaps a chance to say goodbye.

An outlier in Koreeda’s typically rooted domestic naturalism, Sheep in the Box remains grounded in Koreeda’s enduring concerns, proffering, as the director himself has noted, “a universal story about children eventually surpassing their parents.”

Reception food and drink provided by Afuri, Sapporo, and ITO EN.

*The screening of Sheep in the Box was originally Saturday, July 18 to close out JAPAN CUTS; however, it was rescheduled to Sunday, July 19 after the lineup was announced.

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Susan McCormac 3/26/26 Susan McCormac 3/26/26

Japan Society Celebrates Actress Meiko Kaji

Japan Society welcomes Japanese actress and singer Meiko Kaji for her first public New York appearance in more than 40 years.

Meiko Kaji: A Retrospective

Friday, March 27 through Saturday, April 4

Japan Society – 333 E. 47th Street (between 1st and 2nd Avenues)

Japan Society welcomes Japanese actress and singer Meiko Kaji for her first public New York appearance in more than 40 years. Best known in the West as the mythic katana-wielding Lady Snowblood of the eponymous 1973 Toho picture—a violent cult work steeped in fountains of spurting blood—Meiko Kaji remains inseparable from the image of a rebellious outlaw heroine, a cataclysmic force of seventies Japanese cinema whose characteristic steely-eyed gaze cemented her as something akin to Clint Eastwood’s Man with No Name.

About Meiko Kaji

Meiko Kaji, who turned 79 on March 24, was born Masako Ōta in Tokyo. Recruited at the twilight of Japan’s studio era, Kaji emerged in 1965 as a contract player for Nikkatsu, Japan’s oldest film studio. Outspoken and tenacious, she resisted the prescribed mold of modest, reserved female roles, often to the frustration of executives who soon relegated her to supporting parts. Even as an eighteen-year-old newcomer, her unyielding nature revealed a resolute spirit well-suited for outsider roles, and Kaji soon embodied an anti-establishment image of outlaws, bikers and delinquents.

As the industry shifted into violent and sexually charged genre productions to counter waning attendance, Kaji avoided typecasting—even with the success of her vengeful angels—seeking instead to further her craft and artistry, opting for variety over stardom. Moving from ninkyo eiga (chivalry films) and pinky violence to yakuza pictures, arthouse productions, and television, Kaji—whose piercing gaze came to define an era of Japanese cinema—transcended the confines of genre cinema; her depth and versatility extend far beyond the cult mythos that surrounds her.

Japan Society’s Retrospective

Running from Friday, March 27 through Saturday, April 4, Meiko Kaji: A Retrospective features ten films that epitomize her bad-girl image. Three of the ten are already sold out: Lady Snowblood, Female Prisoner Scorpion: Jailhouse 41, and The Love Suicides at Sonezaki. So make sure you purchase tickets for the remaining films by visiting Japan Society’s website or calling the Box Office at 212-715-1258.

Full Lineup

Lady Snowblood

This screening is SOLD OUT

Friday, March 27 at 7:00 p.m.

Admission: $22 Nonmembers | $20 Seniors & Students | $18 Members

Dir. Toshiya Fujita | 1973 | 96 min.

Q&A with Meiko Kaji followed by Opening Night Reception

The representative work of Kaji’s career in action cinema, produced by Toho during a hiatus from Toei, Lady Snowblood adapts Kazuo Kamimura’s manga into a stylish, blood-soaked treatise on retribution.

Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion

Saturday, March 28 at 3:00 p.m.

Admission: $16 Nonmembers | $14 Seniors & Students | $12 Members

Dir. Shunya Ito | 1972 | 87 min.

Confined within a women’s prison populated by sadistic, leering guards and volatile inmates, Kaji’s character Nami radiates a simmering, unspoken rage in what would become her defining role at Toei.

Female Prisoner Scorpion: Jailhouse 41

This screening is SOLD OUT

Saturday, March 28 at 5:00 p.m.

Admission: $18 Nonmembers | $16 Seniors & Students | $14 Members

Dir. Shunya Ito | 1972 |90 min.

Archival 35mm Presentation; Q&A with Meiko Kaji

After a year in solitary confinement in a vicious women’s prison, Nami has taken on a mythic stature as “Sasori” (Scorpion) in Shunya Ito’s feverish, avant-garde-tinged sequel. Banding together an uncouth group of inmates, Nami escapes with sadistic guards in hot pursuit.

Yakuza Graveyard

Saturday, March 28 at 7:30 p.m.

Admission: $18 Nonmembers | $16 Seniors & Students | $14 Members

Dir. Kinji Fukasaku | 1976 | 92 min.

Introduction by Meiko Kaji

Kinji Fukasaku’s propulsive crime film paints postwar Japan as rotten to its core, with hardheaded detective Kuroiwa taking to Osaka’s streets as he forms an unlikely alliance with Kaji’s yakuza mistress—sparking a gang war as corruption bleeds all the way up the chain of command.

Stray Cat Rock: Sex Hunter

Sunday, March 29 at 4:00 p.m.

Admission: $16 Nonmembers | $14 Seniors & Students | $12 Members

Dir. Yasuharu Hasebe | 1970 | 93 min.

35mm Presentation

Kaji’s breakthrough Stray Cat Rock series finds its darkest point in this third entry when Kaji’s delinquent gang faces off with her boyfriend Baron’s violent campaign against mixed-race locals near Yokosuka’s American military base.

The Love Suicides at Sonezaki

This screening is SOLD OUT

Sunday, March 29 at 6:30 p.m.

Admission: $18 Nonmembers | $16 Seniors & Students | $14 Members

Dir. Yasuzo Masumura | 1978 | 112 min.

35mm Import. Q&A with Meiko Kaji

Yasuzo Masumura’s devastating ATG adaptation of the Chikamatsu bunraku drama remains Kaji’s personal favorite of her works, a theatrical and unadorned tragedy steadily advancing to a violent, funereal act of passion.

Wandering Ginza Butterfly

Friday, April 3 at 7:00 p.m.

Admission: $16 Nonmembers | $14 Seniors & Students | $12 Members

Dir. Kazuhiko Yamaguchi | 1972 | 86 min.

World Premiere of 2K Restoration

Kaji’s first Toei appearance following her Nikkatsu exit, Wandering Ginza Butterfly substitutes a period setting for the neon-lit clubs of ’70s Ginza—a hybrid commercial outing: part ninkyo eiga (chivalry films), part The Hustler.

Blind Woman’s Curse

Friday, April 3 at 9:15 p.m.

Admission: $16 Nonmembers | $14 Seniors & Students | $12 Members

Dir. Teruo Ishii |1970 | 84 min.

Teruo Ishii’s phantasmagoric work of erotic grotesque may be the best female swordplay-cum-ghost cat horror film Japan ever produced. The film is also noted for being Kaji’s first starring role under her stage name.

New Battles Without Honor and Humanity: The Boss’s Head

Saturday, April 4 at 6:00 p.m.

Admission: $16 Nonmembers | $14 Seniors & Students | $12 Members

Dir. Kinji Fukasaku | 1975 | 94 min.

The middle film of Fukasaku’s Battles Without Honor and Humanity follow-up series, The Boss’s Head costars Kaji as the wife of a heroin-addicted hitman who befriends, then betrays, series star Bunta Sugawara.

Female Prisoner Scorpion: Beast Stable

Saturday, April 4 at 8:30 p.m.

Admission: $16 Nonmembers | $14 Seniors & Students | $12 Members

Dir. Shunya Ito | 1973 | 87 min.

The third film in the Sasori series—and the last directed by Shunya Ito—is a horror-tinged entry, which finds Nami caught in the wrath of a vengeful yakuza gang, arguably the most violent offering of the series.

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Susan McCormac 7/4/25 Susan McCormac 7/4/25

Japan Society’s Film Festival Begins July 10

JAPAN CUTS 2025 Powered by GU

Thursday, July 10 through Sunday, July 20

Japan Society – 333 E. 47th Street (between 1st and 2nd Avenues)

North America’s largest festival of contemporary Japanese film returns for its 18th year this summer at Japan Society! In the span of eleven days from July 10 through 20, audiences will be treated to 30 curated films from across Japan featuring major award winners, indie darlings, up-and-coming filmmakers, restorations, documentaries, experimental and short films, and anime. JAPAN CUTS Powered by GU is a showcase of the latest in Japanese cinema, featuring both today’s most popular actors and directors as well as tomorrow’s pioneering talent.

Festival Highlights

JAPAN CUTS Powered by GU will present legendary director Kiyoshi Kurosawa with the CUT ABOVE Award for Outstanding Achievement in Film, host the premieres of his new film Cloud and recent remake of Serpent’s Path, as well as showcase revivals of License to Live and a new 4K restoration of the original Serpent’s Path.
A special screening of Yasuhiro Aoki’s ChaO in collaboration with GKIDS on Opening Night. JAPAN CUTS is presenting ChaO before it goes to theaters in Japan in August.
Yuumi Kawai, Japan Academy Film Prize Best Actress winner, appearing in-person for the North American Premiere of A Girl Named Ann and the U.S. Premiere of She Taught Me Serendipity.
A Closing Night screening and shochu reception following the U.S. Premiere of The Spirit of Japan, featuring Yamatozakura Distillery and the film’s director, Joseph Overbey, in attendance.

Admission Information & Pricing

Screenings with Receptions: $26 Nonmembers | $18 Members | $23 seniors and students
Screenings with Q&As: $24 Nonmembers | $17 Member | $22 seniors and students
All Other Screenings: $20 Nonmembers | $14 Members | $18 seniors and students
Short Films: $10 Nonmembers | Free for Members | $5 seniors and students
All-Access Pass: SOLD OUT

Become a member to save 20% on all tickets and reserve free tickets for the SHORT CUTS short films presentation.

Waitlists for Sold-Out Screenings

Those wishing to attend sold-out screenings can visit the Japan Society Box Office in person. There is no online or email waitlist for sold-out screenings. A physical waitlist will begin one hour before each sold-out event. Ten minutes prior to the screening, any available tickets will be released and can be purchased by those present in the order in which they arrived. Please note, there is no guarantee that tickets will be available for sold-out events.

Schedule

Thursday, July 10 at 6:00 p.m.

ChaO – SOLD OUT

Dir. Yasuhiro Aoki | 2025 | 90 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Ouji Suzuka, Anna Yamada

Special Screening—Followed by Opening Night Reception

Yasuhiro Aoki’s debut feature joins the lineage of Studio 4ºC’s (Mind Game, Tekkonkinkreet) innovative oeuvre, formulating an idiosyncratic Andersen fairy tale set in the cyberpunk mélange of near-future Shanghai where humans coexist with mermen. Ordinary salaryman Stephan is catapulted to instant fame when he is suddenly proposed to by Chao, the mermaid princess. Entrusted with the future of human-mermen relations, Stephan is rushed into the pairing, amid a flurry of politicking and diplomacy, and reluctantly agrees to marry the fish princess. But despite the makings of a political marriage, the effervescent Chao’s ardent affection sparks genuine connection. With its off-kilter brand of humor, unique kineticism, and superb hand-drawn art style—purportedly using more than 100,000 hand-drawn frames—Aoki’s ChaO is a fantastical spectacle with a deluge of heartfelt passion, produced over the course of seven years.

Friday, July 11 at 6:00 p.m.

The Real You

Dir. Yuya Ishii | 2024 | 122 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Sosuke Ikematsu, Ayaka Miyoshi, Koshi Mizukami, Taiga Nakano

North American Premiere

Introduced by author Keiichiro Hirano and followed by a book signing

Based on a novel by the Akutagawa-Prize winning Keiichiro Hirano, The Real You is a sci-fi mystery set in a disturbing future that feels far too real. Following the death of his mother, Sakuya Ishikawa (Sosuke Ikematsu) creates a “Virtual Figure” based on her memories to come to terms with his loss and unravel the mysteries of her passing. While he finds solace in this AI simulacrum, will he find answers—and will they be the answers he seeks? A bleak parable for our own world injected with the same sharp satire as Black Mirror, The Real You casts a cutting eye on artificial intelligence, automation, gig work, influencer culture, and tech billionaires run amok.

Attendees will be able to purchase copies of Keiichiro Hirano’s books at this screening or bring books from home for a signing session following the screening.

Friday, July 11 at 9:00 p.m.

The Gesuidouz

Dir. Kenichi Ugana | 2024 | 94 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Natsuko, Leo Imamura, Yutaka Kyan, Rocko Zevenbergen, Yuya Endo

U.S. Premiere

Musician Hanako (Natsuko) believes she has one year left to live and embarks with her horror-themed punk band on a quest to write the world’s best punk song before she dies at the same age as her heroes Kurt Cobain and Jim Morrison. An offbeat, delightful, and deadpan musical comedy from cult filmmaker Kenichi Ugana, The Gesuidouz follows Hanako and her band of misfits’ creative process all while balancing banal life and daily chores in a rural farming village. Overflowing with visual and aural charm, it’s impossible not to cheer for Hanako to live her punk dream.

Saturday, July 12 at 12:30 p.m.

SHORT CUTS – Four short films: FLOW, The Tree of Sinners, End of Dinosaurs, and I Am Not Invisible

FLOW
Dir. Shoko Tamai | 2025 | 5 min. | English | With Dandara Amorim Veiga, Niara Hardister, Minami Ando, Xiaoxiao Cao, Isaiah Newby, Maxfield Haynes
New York Premiere
Introduction by director Shoko Tamai
The word “taboo” comes from the French Polynesian word “tapua.” It means “sacred blood.” FLOW is an experimental short film that honors the taboo inside every woman, the cycle of the moon, and the power of creation.
The Tree of Sinners
Dir. Rii Ishihara and Hiroyuki Onogawa | 2024 | 25 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Sumire, Masatoshi Kihara, Ann Nishihara, Rii Ishihara
North American Premiere
Husband-and-wife team Rii Ishihara and Hiroyuki Onogawa (composer of August in the Water) craft a surreal Taisho fantasy set in a remote mansion, where a maid is forbidden to enter the room of her master’s sick wife. Visually arresting, the pair’s second medium-length work is a beautifully dark fable.
End of Dinosaurs
Dir. Kako Annika Esashi | 2024 | 28 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Kako Annika Esashi, Shota Imai, Leica Sasafu
U.S. Premiere
A young community organizer, a free-spirited girl, and a drag queen set out to challenge a dinosaur-ridden town’s attempt at redevelopment. A delightfully quirky and poignant film from Japanese American filmmaker Kako Annika Esashi. Winner of the Special Jury Prize at the PIA Film Festival.
I Am Not Invisible
Dir. Yuki York | 2024 | 24 min. | in Tagalog, English, and Japanese with English subtitles
U.S. Premiere
Winner of the 2024 PIA Grand Prize, Yuki York’s self-reflexive documentary is a personal essay, shot in an impoverished district of the Philippines, deemed “invisible” by York’s on-screen text. Tracing York’s roots, I Am Not Invisible asks residents innocuous questions about their lives to understand them better, in turn offering to understand York’s own Filipina grandmother better.

Saturday, July 12 at 3:00 p.m.

Yasuko, Songs of Days Past

North American Premiere

Helmed by ’80s auteur Kichitaro Negishi (Distant Thunder, Detective Story), Yasuko is a resplendent Taisho-set period drama penned by Seijun Suzuki scribe Yozo Tanaka, whose past works made up some of the most decadent evocations of Taisho through the visual triumphs of Suzuki’s independent triumvirate of Zigeunerweisen, Kagero-za, and Yumeji. Set in the younger days of ill-fated modernist poet Chuya Nakahara (“Japan’s Rimbaud”), Yasuko captures the prodigy’s early love affair with aspiring actress Yasuko Hasegawa (Suzu Hirose) and the ensuing entanglements when she falls for literary critic Hideo Kobayashi. Negishi’s lush melodrama, his first film in 15 years, burrows deep into the tumultuous entwinement of their bohemian lives, while endowing Hirose’s Yasuko with a depth that exceeds the tired narrative of literary muses.

Saturday, July 12 at 6:30 p.m.

She Taught Me Serendipity

Dir. Akiko Ohku | 2025 | 127 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Riku Hagiwara, Yuumi Kawai, Aoi Ito, Kodai Kurosaki

U.S. Premiere

Q&A with Yuumi Kawai and Reception

Director Akiko Ohku (Tremble All You Want) shifts away from her novel engagements with the neurotic interiorities of young working women to explore the life of college student Konishi (Riku Hagiwara), an anxiety-ridden loner who brandishes an umbrella on sunlit days. Through a progression of coincidences, Konishi forms a bond with classmate Hana (Yuumi Kawai), whose equally vulnerable and eclectic state of mind suggests a perfect match, but in his utter infatuation, Konishi’s self-involved disposition places enormous neglect on friends and co-workers. Sensory and sonically attuned, even balletic at times, She Taught Me Serendipity inventively constructs an approximation of Konishi’s psyche and shines in its open-hearted confessions, soul-baring and poignant in their nature.

Sunday, July 13 at 12:30 p.m.

Kowloon Generic Romance

Dir. Chihiro Ikeda | 2025 | 120 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Riho Yoshioka, Koshi Mizukami

World Premiere

Perhaps nostalgia is nothing more than another form of love. Reiko Kujirai (Riho Yoshioka), who works at a real estate agency in the nostalgic town of Kowloon Walled City, is in love with her senior, Hajime Kudo (Koshi Mizukami). Hajime knows every corner of Kowloon and often takes Reiko to his favorite places, yet the distance between them remains the same. Despite this, Reiko finds comfort in her everyday life, surrounded by dear friends like Yaomay (Minami Umezawa), the shoemaker owner, and Xiaohei (Kotone Hanase), who works part-time at various stores across the town. One day, Reiko is startled when Tao Gwen (Shuntaro Yanagi), a café worker at Goldfish Teahouse, mistakes her for Hajime’s lover. She also stumbles upon a photograph—one that shows Hajime with a woman who looks exactly like her. The forgotten memories of her past, the mystery behind her duplicate self, and the hidden truths buried within Kowloon . . . As the past and present collide, romance becomes the key to unraveling the unknown. Jun Mayuzuki’s acclaimed science fiction mystery manga comes to life!

Sunday, July 13 at 3:00 p.m.

Michiyuki – Voices of Time

Dir. Hiromichi Nakao | 2024 | 79 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Daichi Watanabe, Kanjuro Kiritake, Hiromichi Hosoma

World Premiere of Final Version

Shot in Nara, Hiromichi Nakao’s sophomore feature is an elegant meditation on time and memory with sublime black-and-white cinematography, while also mixing hand-drawn animation with 8mm and digital camerawork. Moving into an old house in the rural countryside, videographer Komai converses with its former owner Umemoto and the town’s inhabitants as he renovates the premises; their discussions draw from personal memories to discuss histories, morphology, cartographies, and the passage of time, reflecting upon the changing tides of tradition and progress within generational spans of the town’s history.

Sunday, July 13 at 5:30 p.m.

A Girl Named Ann

Dir. Yu Irie | 2024 | 113 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Yuumi Kawai, Jiro Sato, Goro Inagaki

North American Premiere

Q&A with Yuumi Kawai

Starring Yuumi Kawai, who won Best Actress at the Japan Academy Film Prize for this stunning performance, A Girl Named Ann tells the story of a teenage dropout attempting to rebuild her life. Ann (Kawai) tries to find hope amid abuse and addiction, and it takes the hand of a Tokyo detective (Sato) to help lift her from the depths. Yet what are the motives of this outstretched hand, and can a single girl climb back to society when the world itself has turned its back? Inspired by a painfully true story, A Girl Named Ann is a testament to individual perseverance and condemnation of larger societal failures, written and directed by the lauded Yu Irie.

Monday, July 14 at 6:00 p.m.

Teki Cometh

Dir. Daihachi Yoshida | 2024 | 108 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Kyozo Nagatsuka, Kumi Takiuchi, Yuumi Kawai, Asuka Kurosawa

New York Premiere

Gisuke (Kyozo Nagatsuka) is a retired college professor who lives a quiet life alone, until one day he finds a post on the internet about an approaching “enemy,” and the world around him begins to melt into paranoia, dream, delusion, and fantasy. Director Daihachi Yoshida (Kiba: The Fangs of Fiction) presents a beautiful, thought-provoking, and arresting film pulled from what many considered an unfilmable novel by Tsutsui Yasutaka. Stunningly lensed and deeply affecting, Teki Cometh poses challenging questions about aging, mortality, and the faulty relationship between memory and reality without offering any easy answers. Widely acclaimed in Japan, Teki Cometh won Best Film, Best Director, and Best Actor at last year’s Tokyo International Film Festival.

Monday, July 14 at 8:30 p.m.

A Samurai in Time

Dir. Junichi Yasuda | 2024 | 131 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Makiya Yamaguchi, Norimasa Fuke, Yuno Sakura

New York Premiere

The biggest Japanese indie phenomenon since One Cut of the Dead! This low-budget film financed entirely by director Junichi Yasuda was initially shown in only one theater, but through word of mouth it grew into a sensation across Japan and ultimately took home Best Film at this year’s Japan Academy Film Prize. At the end of the Edo period, a flash of lightning sends a samurai into the present day, and to survive, he takes a job as an actor in jidaigeki movies. This fish-out-of-water comedy is a love letter to moviemaking and an especially heart-felt tribute to Japan’s jidaigeki industry.

Tuesday, July 15 at 6:00 p.m.

What Should We Have Done?

Dir. Tomoaki Fujino | 2024 | 101 min. | Japanese with English subtitles

In 1983, director Tomoaki Fujino’s 20-something sister Masako began exhibiting signs of schizophrenia. Yet his parents—both in research and medical positions—responded by actively denying anything was wrong and refusing to treat her. Recording his sister from 2001 until her death in 2021, Fujino chronicles his family saga in a deeply personal trove of conversations, family scenes, episodes, and meetings, all documented on a handheld consumer-grade camera. What Should We Have Done? actively explores and confronts the cultural disparities associated with mental illness in Japan. Debuting at the 2024 Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, Tomoaki Fujino’s independent sleeper hit poses a biting titular question, one that has yet to be resolved.

Tuesday, July 15 at 8:30 p.m.

See You Tomorrow

Dir. Saki Michimoto | 2024 | 99 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Makoto Tanaka, Ryota Matsuda, Risa Shigematsu

North American Premiere

The debut feature from director Saki Michimoto is an Osaka-set slice-of-life work, revolving around talented art school student Nao, who roams the streets, framing everything in her line of vision in the viewfinder of her camera. With graduation looming, Nao’s natural abilities, which vastly outshine her friends and classmates, bring promise of new opportunities but at the cost of leaving everything behind. A gentle coming-of-age drama, Michimoto’s See You Tomorrow is subtle and unassuming, quietly affirming the need to branch out and discover fulfillment for oneself.

Wednesday, July 16 at 6:00 p.m.

Cloud – SOLD OUT

Dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa | 2024 | 124 min | Japanese with English subtitles | With Masaki Suda, Kotone Furukawa, Amane Okayama

New York Premiere

CUT ABOVE Award Ceremony—Q&A with Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Reception

Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s third film in a prolific year, following the creative spurt of Chime and Serpent’s Path, shapes up to be a slow-burn techno-thriller, one which takes its name from today’s ubiquitous virtual cloud. Moonlighting as a black-market internet reseller for fake merchandise and products, factory worker Yoshii’s (Masaki Suda) get-rich-quick schemes and morally dubious actions seem to pay off when afforded the opportunity to move out to a remote, wooded lake house seemingly perfect for his business dealings. Rattled by strange incidents, however, Yoshii finds his errant ways catching up to him when unknown assailants target him. Kurosawa’s suspense-driven exercise in the action genre envisions the amplified ire of internet culture as a radicalized hydra of sprouting heads, amassing an anonymous network to quash its petty grievances. Kurosawa, as he so often does, masterfully finds terror in the mundane.

Thursday, July 17 at 6:00 p.m.

Serpent’s Path

Dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa | 2024 |113 min. | French with English subtitles | With Ko Shibasaki, Damien Bonnard, Mathieu Amalric, Hidetoshi Nishijima

East Coast Premiere

Q&A with Kiyoshi Kurosawa

A higher budget remake of Kurosawa’s 1998 straight-to-video effort, Serpent’s Path presents a variation on the original, supplanting Tokyo for the overcast banlieues of Paris while swapping genders with its clinical protagonist and adding new narrative depths despite overtly, if not eerily, echoing its predecessor. Kidnapping an associate of a purported child-trafficking organization ominously named The Circle, Albert (Damien Bonnard) seeks retribution for the death of his child and enacts his cruel vengeance with the aid of physician Sayoko (Ko Shibasaki). The snaking narrative of Kurosawa’s psychological experiment has been told once before, yet its pathway differs ever so slightly. With haunting precision, Serpent’s Path suggests that the destination remains incontrovertibly the same.

Thursday, July 17 at 9:30 p.m.

License to Live

Dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa | 1998 | 109 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Hidetoshi Nishijima, Koji Yakusho, Shun Sugata

Archival 35mm Presentation

Introduction by Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s fascinating reconstruction of a 1970 Jason Robards picture—Sam Peckinpah’s frontier western The Ballad of Cable Hogue, to be exact—lifts the framework of Bloody Sam’s uncharacteristically subdued hangout film while substituting the twilight days of the Old West for 1990s Tokyo. Awakening from a ten-year coma, 24-year-old Yutaka (Drive My Car’s Hidetoshi Nishijima in his first lead role) finds that his family has separated in the decade-long interim. Expressing disinterest in the time lost, the lackadaisical Yutaka, with the help of his father’s old college friend Fujimori (Koji Yakusho), resolves to establish a pony ranch on a plot once owned by his family, forming an outpost which welcomes a community of outsiders. Irreverent, wryly comic, and heartfelt, License to Live is a marked departure from Kurosawa’s V-Cinema and horror fare, constituting an early show of the filmmaker’s remarkable adaptability and versatile range.

Friday, July 18 at 6:00 p.m.

Japanese Avant-Garde Pioneers

Dir. Amélie Ravalec | 2024 | 100 min. | English and Japanese with English subtitles | With Nobuyoshi Araki, Tadanori Yokoo, Keiichi Tanaami

New York Premiere

Q&A with director Amélie Ravalec

Exploring the explosion of postwar radical art in the 1960s and the rise of Japanese avant-garde, Japanese Avant-Garde Pioneers covers the multitude of then-burgeoning experimentations in the art form, spanning across the disciplines of photography, film, graphic design, theater, and performance. With the participation of major figures in these revolutionary movements—Hosoe, Araki, Moriyama, Yokoo, to name a few—Amélie Ravalec’s documentary is an enthralling glimpse into the outsider art of Japan’s underground movements.

Friday, July 18 at 8:30 p.m.

Blazing Fists

Dir. Takashi Miike | 2025 | 119 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Danhi Kinoshita, Kaname Yoshizawa, Gackt, Anna Tsuchiya

U.S. Premiere

From iconoclastic director Takashi Miike and with a cast including pop stars Gackt and Anna Tsuchiya, Blazing Fists is the story of two men in a juvenile reformatory determined to redeem themselves through a fighting tournament. Can they change their destinies through their physical mettle, or will the weight of their pasts weigh down their futures? Blazing Fists is a powerfully human film about loyalty and friendship, filled with exuberant outbursts of Miike’s hallmark action, humor, and violence.

Saturday, July 19 at 12:30 p.m.

Promised Land

Dir. Masashi Iijima | 2023 | 89 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Rairu Sugita, Kantaro

New York Theatrical Premiere

Masashi Iijima’s feature film directorial debut is based on an award-winning 1983 novel by Kazuichi Iijima. Set in a rural mountain town, it follows two matagi (traditional Japanese hunters) as they embark on a bear hunt in secret, preserving their custom despite a governmental ban. This tense and austere film told through long shots and minimal dialogue presents a very personal story about the conflict between tradition and progress and allows the audience ample time to reflect in wide stretches of silence amid snowy mountain vistas.

Saturday, July 19 at 2:30 p.m.

My Sunshine

Dir. Hiroshi Okuyama | 2024 | 90 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Sosuke Ikematsu, Keitatsu Koshiyama, Kiara Nakanishi

New York Premiere

On the snowy island of Hokkaido, a young hockey player named Takuya (Keitatsu Koshiyama) becomes transfixed by the figure skaters who share the rink, particularly Sakura (Kiara Nakanishi), a rising star from Tokyo. Her coach, Arakawa (Sosuke Ikematsu), takes an interest in Takuya, seeing himself in the young boy. He pairs the two up and trains them as an ice-dancing duo. Tentatively at first, they grow closer and form a deep bond, but as unspoken feelings begin to surface, the harmony of the trio begins to shake. Intimately lensed and told through a striking kaleidoscope of winter hues, My Sunshine is an aching film that captivates the audience with a nostalgia for both the wonders and pain of young love while at the same time confronting the deeper subjects of Japan’s attitudes toward masculinity and homosexuality.

Saturday, July 19 at 4:30 p.m.

So Beautiful, Wonderful and Lovely

Dir. Megumi Okawara | 2025 | 67 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Megumi Okawara, Shin Namura, Naoko Miya

North American Premiere

Q&A with director Megumi Okawara

A frenetic display of heartbreak filled with whimsical leanings, So Beautiful, Wonderful and Lovely finds school janitor Nozomi Haruta (Megumi Okawara) at her wits’ end when her boyfriend unceremoniously dumps her to marry another woman. Struggling to rationalize the situation, she behaves erratically, photobombing his wedding pictures and fantasizing a Castella version of her boyfriend. Imbued with a sense of real youthful energy at its core due to its rapid-fire demonstration of versatile editing and playfully absurd humor, writer/director/editor and lead actress Megumi Okawara’s So Beautiful overflows with creative ambition.

Love Letter © Fuji Television Network. Inc.

Saturday, July 19 at 6:30 p.m.

Dir. Shunji Iwai | 1995 | 117 min. | With Miho Nakayama, Etsushi Toyokawa, Miki Sakai, Takashi Kashiwabara

30th Anniversary—North American Premiere of 4K Restoration

The feature film debut of ’90s auteur Shunji Iwai is a swell of desiderium and emerging memory, an epistolary melodrama which lightly evokes Proust’s madeleine in the blanche wintertide of Otaru. Framed within the back-and-forth correspondence of heartbroken Hiroko and librarian Itsuki—a widowed fiancée and the former classmate of her deceased lover (Miho Nakayama in dual roles)—Love Letter focuses on buried recollections as their letters uncover Itsuki’s school-age memories of Hiroko’s dead fiancé. Unapologetic in its soft-focus lyricism, Love Letter brims with unbridled emotion, buoyed by its dreamy cinematography, mnemonic constructions, and amber shades. Beloved throughout Asia, Iwai’s breakthrough would capture the hearts of an entire generation, swept over by its sincere convictions and the late Miho Nakayama’s eternal mountainside cry “O genki desu ka?”

Saturday, July 19 at 9:00 p.m.

Serpent’s Path – 4K Restoration

Dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa | 1998 | 85 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Sho Aikawa, Teruyuki Kagawa, Yurei Yanagi

North American Premiere of 4K Restoration

Given the chance to shoot two films back-to-back within the same two-week span, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s 1998 V-Cinema production, along with its sister film Eyes of the Spider, hinges on the same premise: a man seeking revenge for the murder of his child. With a detached, observational style, Kurosawa relays the grim chain of events with muted horror as Miyashita (Teruyuki Kagawa) and his calculating friend Nijima methodically kidnap and torture a yakuza thought to be involved in the brutal killing of his young daughter. The blind search for vengeance leads them down a convoluted path, ravaging through a string of connected associates. Operating on a low budget, Kurosawa’s taut psychological thriller plumbs the depths of this fanatical obsession, resigning to a goal which becomes ever more obscure.

Sunday, July 20 at 12:30 p.m.

Gridman Universe

Dir. Akira Amemiya | 2023 | 118 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Hikaru Midorikawa, Yuya Hirose, Yume Miyamoto, Soma Saito, Junya Enoki

North American Theatrical Premiere

Studio Trigger, one of the most explosive anime studios in Japan, reimagined Tsuburaya Productions’ classic tokusatsu series Gridman: The Hyper Agent in honor of its 25th anniversary with the anime series SSSS.Gridman. Following the success of SSSS.Gridman and its sequel SSSS.Dynazenon, Trigger now presents an all-new big screen spectacle celebrating the tokusatsu and kaiju genres and injecting them with their trademark over-the-top, stylish action. Perfect for fans of these genres and deeply rewarding for followers of Trigger’s previous Gridman series, Gridman Universe is a dimension-spanning adventure where the fate of more than one world hangs in the balance.

Sunday, July 20 at 3:00 p.m.

Kaiju Guy!

Dir. Junichiro Yagi | 2024 | 80 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Gumpy

North American Premiere

Ichiro Yamada (Japanese comedian Gumpy) works in the Seki City tourism department, and one day he’s ordered to produce a “local movie,” a common Japanese promotional gimmick designed to highlight local hotspots and increase visitors. However, Yamada has doubts about the mayor’s plan and proposes something else: a local kaiju movie. Heads butt, emotions clash, and a monster is unleashed. An absolutely delightful, heartfelt, and rewarding comedy, Kaiju Guy! will make you roar.

Sunday, July 20 at 5:00 p.m.

The Spirit of Japan

Dir. Joseph Overbey | 2024 | 48 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Tekkan Wakamatsu, Kazunari Wakamatsu, Ranko Wakamatsu

World Premiere

Q&A with director Joseph Overbey and producer Stephen Lyman and followed by a reception featuring shochu from Yamatozakura Distillery

The Spirit of Japan is the story of the Wakamatsu family, who have been distilling sweet potato shochu by hand at their Yamatozakura Distillery in Kagoshima Prefecture since the 1850s. This documentary follows fifth generation master brewer Tekkan Wakamatsu as he takes 175-year-old traditions passed down by his father, Kazunari Wakamatsu, and strives to adapt them to a rapidly changing market driven by commodification and mass consumerism. Director Joseph Overbey lived with the Wakamatsu family as he shot The Spirit of Japan, offering a rarified look inside the shochu-making production, an intimate portrait of family succession, and an unflinching glimpse into the harsh realities of preserving tradition in the modern world.

Support JapanCulture•NYC by becoming a member! For $5 a month, you’ll help maintain the high quality of our site while we continue to showcase and promote the activities of our vibrant community. Please click here to begin your membership today!

Susan McCormac 2/5/25 Susan McCormac 2/5/25

Japan Society Pays Tribute to Legendary Filmmaker

Japan Society pays tribute to legendary filmmaker Nobuhiko Obayashi with a series featuring his “seishun eiga”

Obayashi ’80s: The Onomichi Trilogy & Kadokawa Years

Friday, February 7 through Friday, February 14, 2025

Japan Society – 333 E. 47th Street (between 1st and 2nd Avenues)

Admission: $16 | $12 Japan Society Members

Japan Society presents a tribute to Japanese director and screenwriter Nobuhiko Obayashi, whose career spanned 60 years and multiple genres. Curated by Japan Society Film Programmer Alexander Fee, Obayashi ’80s: The Onomichi Trilogy & Kadokawa Years comprises six films screened across five days.

About the Film Series

The teenage symphonies of Nobuhiko Obayashi (1938-2020) are wound in a melancholy nostalgia for a period indelibly lost to time—that inexpressible gap between adolescence and adulthood. Braiding visually expressive fantasias with striking formal experimentation and pop-art boldness, Obayashi’s idiosyncratic cinematic language produced some of Japan’s most beloved seishun eiga (youth films) in the 1980s. Captivating generations of filmgoers with his earnest portraits of young love and vanished worldviews, Obayashi’s films were further bolstered by film studio Kadokawa’s innovative tactics of popularizing dreamy pop idols such as Hiroko Yakushimaru and Tomoyo Harada.

With a career overshadowed abroad by the oddball eccentricity of his electric 1977 debut House, the 1980s would prove to be the high-water mark of Obayashi’s popularity, epitomized by his endearing Onomichi trilogy—set in the filmmaker’s hometown of Onomichi, the site of Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Story. Framed in 35mm viewfinders, against wildly ingenious chroma-key composites and characterized by his unflagging optimism for the youth of Japan, Obayashi’s youth passages are caught up in the ages of transition, demonstrably attuned to the extraordinary nature of ordinary adolescence.

To purchase tickets, please visit Japan Society’s website.

Schedule

Friday, February 7

I Are You, You Am Me (Exchange Students)
7:00 p.m. | 112 min.
A playful mélange of amateur small-gauge, black-and-white, and color photography, Obayashi’s first entry in his hometown trilogy spins into a gender-swap youth film when two classmates switch bodies after a steep fall.
School in the Crosshairs
9:15 p.m. | 90 min.
A psychotronic fantasy forged into a young girl’s destiny to defend the planet, School in the Crosshairs is a cosmic overload of extraterrestrial fascists, preternatural powers, and Obayashi’s uniquely adroit filmmaking abilities.

Saturday, February 8

The Little Girl Who Conquered Time
5:00 p.m. | 104 min.
Schoolgirl Kazuko begins to experience time leaps backwards and forward in time, disorienting her as she yearns to stay in the present. Obayashi’s second Onomichi film is a genuine expression of the transcendence of love—one cast across the stars for a young girl who lives in tomorrow.
Lonely Heart (Miss Lonely)
8:00 p.m. | 112 min.
The final installment in Obayashi’s Onomichi trilogy is celebrating its 40th anniversary. It is a virtuosic ode to first love and the intrinsic emotions that arise with it as a young boy falls in love and encounters a mysterious girl in the viewfinder of his analog camera.

Sunday, February 9

The Island Closest to Heaven
5:00 p.m. | 103 min.
Fulfilling her late father’s dream to take her to “the island closest to heaven,” bookish teen Mari ventures solo to a paradise-laden archipelago in search of the mythic locale.
School in the Crosshairs
7:15 p.m.

Thursday, February 13

His Motorbike, Her Island
7:00 p.m. | 96 min.
A nostalgia-filled reminiscence, Obayashi’s monochromatic dream playfully worships the biker culture of yesteryear, delivering a sentimental and liberating take on young love.
I Are You, You Am Me (Exchange Students)
9:15 p.m. | 112 min.

Friday, February 14

The Little Girl Who Conquered Time
7:00 p.m. | 104 min.
His Motorbike, Her Island
9:15 p.m. | 96 min.

About Nobuhiko Obayashi

Born in Onomichi, Hiroshima Prefecture, in 1938, Nobuhiko Obayashi’s 60-year film career began with avant-garde experimental shorts in the 1960s. Throughout the 1970, he directed highly stylized and whimsical television commercials, which allowed him to experiment with different techniques and to develop his creative flair. His mainstream films, as featured in Japan Society’s series, focused on the innocence of youth, young love, loss, and nostalgia. In his later works, Obayashi weaved social commentary, such as anti-war themes, into his storytelling.

Obayashi died of lung cancer in April 2020 at the age of 82.

Susan McCormac 2/13/24 Susan McCormac 2/13/24

Explore the Family Dynamic at Japan Society

Family Portrait: Japanese Family in Flux

Thursday, February 15 through Saturday, February 24

Japan Society – 333 E. 47th Street (between 1st and 2nd Avenues)

Admission: $16 General | $14 Seniors, Students, and Persons with Disabilities | $12 Japan Society Members (unless otherwise noted)

Presented by Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan and Japan Society, Family Portrait: Japanese Family in Flux examines the shifting dynamics and struggles of the Japanese household in contemporary cinema. Showcasing ten features, including premieres and revivals, Family Portrait confronts the complexities of familial bonds in the face of adversity—from intergenerational gaps to changing mores and traditions—bringing to question what truly defines a family and its values in a modern world.

Series highlights include the U.S. Premiere of Kazuyoshi Kumakiri’s Yoko, starring Academy Award-nominated actress Rinko Kikuchi in a bravura performance as a woman hitchhiking more than 400 miles to her father’s funeral; the U.S. Premiere of Keiko Tsuruoka’s Tsugaru Lacquer Girl, the heart-tugging story of a family lacquerware business on the brink of collapse run by Kaoru Kobayashi of Midnight Diner fame and the daughter who strives to carry on its legacy despite deeply held traditional gender beliefs; and a Classics slate featuring a rare 35mm presentation of Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Twilight.

A special spotlight will shine on director Ryota Nakano, who has spent his career keenly capturing the complex feelings of families when faced with adversity. His latest film, The Asadas, centers on the power of family in the aftermath of the Fukushima tragedy and will be presented along with his two previous works, A Long Goodbye and Her Love Boils Bathwater. Nakano will appear in person at Family Portrait: Japanese Family in Flux to speak during select screenings and take part in a reception.

To purchase tickets, please visit Japan Society’s website, and visit IFC Center’s website to purchase tickets to the screening of Yoko on February 22.

© 2008 “Still Walking” Production Committee

Lineup and Schedule

Still Walking
Thursday, February 15 at 7:00 p.m.
Dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda | 2008 | 114 min. | Japanese with English subtitles. |. With Hiroshi Abe, Yui Natsukawa, Kirin Kiki, Yoshio Harada

The Yokoyama family gathers for an annual commemoration of the eldest son, Junpei, who drowned 15 years ago while saving someone’s life. Over the course of the day, suppressed tensions and resentments are gradually revealed amidst forced pleasantries and shared meals as second son Ryo (Hiroshi Abe) endures feelings of inferiority in front of his curmudgeon father (Yoshio Harada) and passively judgmental mother (Kirin Kiki), both of whom disapprove of his recent marriage to a widow (Yui Natsukawa) with a ten-year-old son. Dedicated to his late mother, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s 2008 drama is among his most personal films—a masterfully directed, emotionally nuanced expression of the love, heartbreak, and comfort within family relationships—and a modern classic of Japanese cinema.

Tsugaru Lacquer Girl
Friday, February 16 at 7:00 p.m.
Dir. Keiko Tsuruoka | 2023 | 118 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Mayu Hotta, Kaoru Kobayashi
U.S. Premiere

Traditional tsugaru-nuri lacquerwork is the Aoki family’s legacy, but their business is in decline and father Seishiro (Kaoru Kobayashi) doesn’t know if it will continue to the next generation. The family’s only hope is daughter Miyako (Mayu Hotta), but her desire to lead the family business upsets generations of customs, established gender roles, and Seishiro himself. Tsugaru Lacquer Girl vividly celebrates one of Japan’s most traditional arts and asks poignant questions about history, family, and if the past has a place in the future.

Muddy River
Saturday, February 17 at 4:00 p.m.
Dir. Kohei Oguri | 1981 | 105 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Takahiro Tamura, Yumiko Fujita, Mariko Kaga, Nobutaka Asahara

Taking place in working class Osaka eleven years after Japan’s defeat, Kohei Oguri’s naturalistic debut detailing an unforgettable summer friendship between two young boys is tinged with a poetic melancholy. Seen through the eyes of ten-year-old Nobuo, whose world is governed by the riverside traffic of sputtering barges, fishing boats, and a “monstrous carp,” Muddy River dwells on Nobuo’s last days of innocence as he befriends poor river dweller Kiichi, who lives nearby with his sister and mysterious mother (Mariko Kaga) on a ramshackle houseboat. Caught in the lives of its worn-down and impoverished residents—some still living the war, others dreaming of a new life—Oguri’s stunning black-and-white feature remains a heart-wrenching portrait of postwar Japan and its afflictions, the effects of which reverberate deep within the wordless exchanges and crestfallen faces of its downtrodden subjects.

Tokyo Twilight
Saturday, February 17 at 7:00 p.m.
Dir. Yasujiro Ozu | 1957 | 140 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Setsuko Hara, Ineko Arima, Chishu Ryu

In the thick of the industrial hums and billowing smokestacks of postwar Tokyo, Yasujiro Ozu’s crepuscular drama concerns the lives of elderly Shukichi’s (Chishu Ryu) two grown-up daughters, each taking lodgings at their father’s Tokyo home. Hemmed in by setbacks and personal troubles, Takako (Setsuko Hara) seeks refuge from her abusive husband while “delinquent” younger sister Akiko (Ineko Arima) faces the shock of an unplanned pregnancy. In delicate strokes, Ozu orchestrates Tokyo Twilight across waystations of contemporary Tokyo—from seedy mahjong parlors and Western-themed bars with Latin beats to desolate shipyards and train crossings. With quiet devastation and lingering regret, Ozu’s final black-and-white feature is one of his unequivocal masterpieces, a woeful melodrama illuminated against the fading light of day.

Hoyaman
Sunday, February 18 at 4:00 p.m.
Dir. Teruaki Shoji | 2023 | 106 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Afro, Kumi Kureshiro, Kodai Kurosaki
U.S. Premiere

A tearful comedy set on a beautiful island, Hoyaman follows the strange adventures of two fisherman brothers and a mysterious artist who drifts onto the island and into their lives. The three are at a crossroads in a deeply human story featuring ramen, superheroes, and tsunamis. Hoyaman tells the story of an unorthodox but modern family and the bonds that challenge us to grow. It’s director Teruaki Shoji’s feature film debut and filmed entirely on Ajishima, an island off the coast of his hometown of Ishinomaki. It features a cast of rising talent lead by Afro from the band MOROHA in his own movie debut.

Tokyo Sonata
Sunday, February 18 at 7:00 p.m.
Dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa | 2008 | 119 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Teruyuki Kagawa, Kyoko Koizumi, Kai Inowaki., Yu Koyanagi

Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s appropriately terrifying take on the domestic drama looks beyond the platitudes of familial values and empty promises of a happy life into the recesses of the human condition. Laid off in a wave of company downsizing, salaryman Ryuhei hides his misfortune, opting instead to deceive his family into thinking he still remains employed. Equally adrift are wife, Megumi (Kyoko Koizumi), yearning for someone to pull her out of her banal routines; teen Takashi, who sees no future living in Japan; and younger son Kenji, who simply desires to play the piano. Searching for catharsis, the family members begin to live out clandestine lives rather than confront their creeping divide. Winner of the Jury Prize of the Un Certain Regard section at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, Kurosawa’s cynical look at the subsurface decay and inadequacies of the traditional family points to its inherent breakdown.

Yoko
Thursday, February 22 at 7:00 p.m.
Offsite Screening: IFC Center – 323 6th Avenue
Admission: $18 General | $15 Seniors and Children
To purchase tickets, please visit IFC Center’s website.
Dir. Kazuyoshi Kumakiri | 2023 | 113 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Rinko Kikuchi, Pistol Takehara, Asuka Kurosawa
U.S. Premiere

International star Rinko Kikuchi plays the titular Yoko in an unorthodox road movie that follows an isolated woman’s journey to hitchhike more than 400 miles to her estranged father’s funeral. As she encounters a sweeping range of travelers across her trek, what will Yoko learn from each of them, and what will they learn from her? And in crossing this physical distance, can Yoko mend the emotional distance between her father and herself?

Her Love Boils Bathwater
Friday, February 23 at 7:00 p.m.
Admission: $18 General | $16 Seniors, Students, and Persons with Disabilities | $14 Japan
New York Premiere with Director Q&A and Reception
Dir. Ryota Nakano | 2016 | 125 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Rie Miyazawa, Hana Sugisaki, Joe Odagiri

Rie Miyazawa stars as Futaba, a single mother diagnosed with terminal cancer. With little time left, she sets out on a mission to reconnect her family, reuniting with her husband, reassuring her daughter, and bringing both together to save the family business. A popular and critical hit, Her Love Boils Bathwater won Miyazawa Best Actress and Hana Sugisaki Best Supporting Actress at the Japan Academy Awards, and the film was Japan’s official entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars.

A Long Goodbye
Saturday, February 24 at 4:00 p.m.
Dir. Ryota Nakano | 2019 | 127 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Yu Aoi, Yuko Takeuchi, Tsutomu Yamazaki
New York Premiere

Based on the book by Naoki Prize-winning writer Kyoko Nakajima, A Long Goodbye traces the gradual memory loss of the aging Shohei (Tsutomu Yamazaki) due to Alzheimer’s and the painful challenges and unexpected joys his two daughters experience as they return home to care for him. While Alzheimer’s robs Shohei of his past, his long goodbye brings new memories and a new closeness to his loved ones.

The Asadas
Saturday, February 24 at 7:00 p.m.
Introduction by director Ryota Nakano and Followed by a Talk Session
Dir. Ryota Nakano | 2020 | 127 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Kazunari Ninomiya, Satoshi Tsumabuki, Masaki Suda

Inspired by real-life photographer Masashi Asada, director Ryota Nakano’s latest film balances humor and heart in an unexpectedly true story. As an energetic dreamer in a traditional family, Masashi (Kazunari Ninomiya)’s initial artistic endeavors are met with skepticism and little support, but in the aftermath of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, Masashi’s photographic skills are given new purpose, and he embarks on a mission that brings his family—and families across Japan—together.

About the ACA Cinema Project

The ACA Cinema Project is a new initiative organized as part of the “Japan Film Overseas Expansion Enhancement Project,” an ongoing project founded by the Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan (ACA) to create opportunities for the increased exposure, development, and appreciation of Japanese cinema overseas through screenings, symposiums, and other events held throughout the year. The ACA Cinema Project introduces a wide range of Japanese films in the United States, a major center of international film culture, together with local partners, such as Japan Society, IFC Center, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Linwood Dunn Theater.

Susan McCormac 12/12/23 Susan McCormac 12/12/23

JapanCulture•NYC x Japan Society Ticket Giveaway!

🚨🎟️GIVEAWAY ALERT ‼️

We're teaming up with our friends at Japan Society Film for a ticket giveaway to the screening of Dogra Magra on Friday, December 15 at 9:00 p.m.!

Japan Society Film is generously giving five pairs of tickets to this Japanese mystery fiction fantasy extravaganza by Toshio Matsumoto! That means five winners will each take a +1 to celebrate the 35th anniversary of Matsumoto's final feature!

DETAILS

🎥 Dogra Magra

📅 Friday, December 15

⏰ 9:00pm

📍 Japan Society – 333 E. 47th Street (between 1st and 2nd Avenues)

HOW TO ENTER

🎯Follow @japanculturenyc, @jsfilmnyc, and @japansociety on Instagram

🏷️ Tag @japanculturenyc in an Instagram post related to Japanese Culture in New York City (food, drink, film, art, music, books, crafts)

☠️ Deadline: Thursday, December 14 at 12:00pm

🏆 Winners announced Thursday, December 14 by 6:00pm

ABOUT DOGRA MAGRA

Based on one of the Sandaikisho (Three Great Occult Books) of Japanese mystery fiction, Toshio Matsumoto’s fourth and final feature adapts the unadaptable: a filmed version of surrealist 1935 avant-garde classic Dogra Magra written by Kyusaku Yumeno—the famous detective novelist whose pen name fittingly translates to “person who always dreams.”

In Taisho 15, the period’s final year, an amnesiac awakens in a sanatorium without recollection of his name or face. Forced to reconstruct his memory, the patient is accosted by two doctors (including one purported to be deceased) who relate his condition in differing fashions, complicating whether physicians are telling the truth or playing a Fowlesian godgame.

Working with frequent cinematographer Tatsuo Suzuki (Himiko, Pastoral: To Die in the Country), Matsumoto constructs a disorienting Jungian work, overwrought with conspiracies and intermingling tales. Delivering intra-womb fetuses, red herrings, and false revelations, Dogra Magra unfurls a complex tapestry of alternating histories—resulting in a whirlwind tragedy brought on by fantasies of eternal recurrence.

Dir. Toshio Matsumoto, 1988, 109 min., 35mm, color, in Japanese with live English subtitles. With Yoji Matsuda, Shijaku Katsura, Hideo Murota, Eri Misawa.

This screening is part of Japan Society’s current series Taisho Roman: Fever Dreams of the Great Rectitude, running through December 16. To see the remaining films and to purchase tickets, please visit Japan Society’s website.

Huge thanks to Japan Society, Japan Society Film, and Peter Tatara for making this giveaway possible.

Japan Society to Showcase 30 Japanese Films in 12 Days

JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film 2026 Powered by Canon

Admission Information & Pricing

Sold-Out Screenings

Schedule

Wednesday, July 8

Thursday, July 9

Friday, July 10

Saturday, July 11

Sunday, July 12

Monday, July 13

Tuesday, July 14

Wednesday, July 15

Thursday, July 16

Friday, July 17

Saturday, July 18

Sunday, July 19

Japan Society Celebrates Actress Meiko Kaji

Meiko Kaji: A Retrospective

About Meiko Kaji

Japan Society’s Retrospective

Full Lineup

Japan Society’s Film Festival Begins July 10

JAPAN CUTS 2025 Powered by GU

Festival Highlights

Admission Information & Pricing

Waitlists for Sold-Out Screenings

Schedule

Japan Society Pays Tribute to Legendary Filmmaker

Obayashi ’80s: The Onomichi Trilogy & Kadokawa Years

About the Film Series

Schedule

About Nobuhiko Obayashi

Explore the Family Dynamic at Japan Society

Family Portrait: Japanese Family in Flux

Lineup and Schedule

About the ACA Cinema Project

JapanCulture•NYC x Japan Society Ticket Giveaway!

🚨🎟️GIVEAWAY ALERT ‼️

DETAILS

HOW TO ENTER

ABOUT DOGRA MAGRA

LEARN MORE