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 7/19/25 Susan McCormac 7/19/25

Remaining Japanese Films at NYAFF

24th New York Asian Film Festival

Walter Reade Theater – 165 W. 65th Street
Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center Amphitheater – 144 W. 65th Street
LOOK Cinemas – 657 W. 57th Street
SVA Theatre – 333 W. 23rd Street

The New York Asian Film Foundation and Film at Lincoln Center present the 24th edition of the New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF). This year marks NYAFF’s most globally expansive lineup . From blockbusters to indie treasures, NYAFF offers a rare opportunity to discover emerging talent and groundbreaking voices from across the region.

This year’s theme is “Cinema as Disruption”—spotlighting bold, genre-defying films that challenge, provoke, and reimagine. From unsettling horror and feminist thrillers to cosmic punk epics and political allegories, NYAFF celebrates the power of Asian cinema to defy convention.

“This year’s lineup dares to confront, question, and dream—exactly what cinema should do,” says Samuel Jamier, NYAFF Executive Director. To see the full lineup and to purchase tickets, please visit NYAFF’s website.

The remaining Japanese films include Transcending Dimensions, Blue Spring, 9 Souls, How Dare You?, Ravens, Samurai Fury, Jinsei, and Babanba Banban Vampire. Several screenings

Saturday, July 19 at 9:15 p.m.

Walter Reade Theater – 165 W. 65th Street

Admission: $19 General | $16 Seniors, Students, and Persons with Disabilities | $14 Film at Lincoln Center Members

Transcending Dimensions

2025 | 97 minutes | Japanese with English subtitles

North American Premiere

Matsuri to Midnight + Q&A with NYAFF 2025 Filmmaker in Focus Toshiaki Toyoda

Reaffirming his status as one of Japan’s most daring cinema provocateurs, NYAFF 2025 Filmmaker in Focus Toshiaki Toyoda returns with his first feature in seven years. A pulsing flirtation with the surreal, and an enthralling masterwork exploding with visceral and cerebral delights, Transcending Dimensions fuses sci-fi and crime into a meditation on the very nature of existence, time, and belief. Blending concepts that he’s been exploring in his brilliant “Mt. Resurrection Wolf” series of shorts, Toyoda immerses viewers in an aesthetically transfixing vision of inner and outer worlds. Set against a backdrop of collapsing realities and cosmic uncertainty, his new film delivers an epic journey involving four men: an earnest hit man (frequent collaborator Ryuhei Matsuda), a gullible monk, a mountain mystic, and a powerful sorcerer. Soon, faux religions, yakuza-style violence, and environmental collapse threaten to collide.

Ticket holders are invited to the Furman Gallery for Matsuri to Midnight before the screening starts.

*Blue Spring* © Taiyo Matsumoto/Shogakukan・"Blue Spring"Film Partners 2001

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

Walter Reade Theater – 165 W. 65th Street

Admission: $19 General | $16 Seniors, Students, and Persons with Disabilities | $14 Film at Lincoln Center Members

Blue Spring

2002 | 83 minutes | Japanese with English subtitles

Special Screening

Q&A with NYAFF 2025 Filmmaker in Focus Toshiaki Toyoda

NYAFF presents a special 35mm screening of Toshiaki Toyoda’s seminal classic Blue Spring. This groundbreaking, provocative film captured the malaise and disillusionment of a generation of youth coming of age at the turn of the millennium in a post-bubble Japan, where the norms of the past felt irrelevant and the future uncertain. With serious verve and a roiling badass soundtrack, this tale of power and rebellion grabs the viewer and doesn’t let go.

In their graduation year, disaffected students turn their concrete box of a school into a backdrop against which to create their own version of society. The newly elected boss Kujo (Ryuhei Matsuda) disdains all the rules, including those that have led to his election. Into this power vacuum, his scandalized friend and lieutenant Aoki (Hirofumi Arai) enters with vicious intent. As graduation looms, the pupils study violence and death.

Sunday, July 20 at 3:15 p.m.

LOOK Cinemas – 657 W. 57th Street

Admission: $15

9 SOULS

2003 | 120 minutes | Japanese with English subtitles

Special Screening

Part of NYAFF’s 2025 Filmmaker in Focus on Toshiaki Toyoda, 9 SOULS is the surrealist comedy addition to Toyoda’s body of work. Following his nihilist punk youth drama Blue Spring, Toyoda showcases his genre range with a mashup of gangster drama, satire, and comedy. Though it may be different in tone, 9 SOULS nevertheless shows Toyoda’s signature rebelliousness and cult style.

Nine convicts escape from prison; most are convicted murderers. They commandeer a van from a strip club. Their plan is to find a stash of counterfeit money that a deranged cell mate told them about, divide it, then part ways. They make it to the site where the money is supposed to be hidden, and then one by one, each seeks out the place he wants to be, a version of home, somewhere to connect. Will it end well for any of them?

Sunday, July 20 at 4:30 p.m.

Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center Amphitheater – 144 W. 65th Street

Master Class with Tadanobu Asano and Mark Gill

Admission: $10 for general public and $5 for FLC & NYAFF members

An in-depth master class with renowned actor Tadanobu Asano (Shōgun) and the director of Ravens, Mark Gill.

Sunday, July 20 at 6:15 p.m.

Walter Reade Theater – 165 W. 65th Street

Admission: $19 General | $16 Seniors, Students, and Persons with Disabilities | $14 Film at Lincoln Center Members

How Dare You?

2025 | 96 minutes | Japanese with English subtitles

North American Premiere

Q&A with Mipo O

Grade schooler Yuishi becomes infatuated with schoolmate Kokoa when she gives an impassioned class speech about saving the environment in the spirit of Greta Thunberg. Soon after they team up with the class troublemaker, and Yuishi finds himself both on a self-righteous crusade of activism and in a precocious love triangle. When the trio’s antics escalate to unexpected consequences, they must all own up to the cold, hard truth.

Director Mipo O proves not only her insightful sense of humor, but also a knack for getting naturalistic performances out of her young cast. With its cleverly wry script that takes on both huge moral issues and murmurs of the heart from a child’s viewpoint, How Dare You? is a winningly observant and bittersweet cautionary tale for both young and old alike.

*Ravens* ©Vestapol Films, Ark Entertainment, Minded Factory, Y house, Katsize Films

Sunday, July 20 at 9:00 p.m.

Walter Reade Theater – 165 W. 65th Street

Premium Screening: $25 for general public; $20 for seniors, students, persons with disabilities, and members

Ravens

2024 | 116 minutes | Japanese and English with English subtitles

New York Premiere

Q&A with Mark Gill, Tadanobu Asano, and cinematographer Fernando Ruiz

In Mark Gill’s hauntingly beautiful portrait of legendary Japanese photographer Masahisa Fukase, Golden Globe winner Tadanobu Asano (Shōgun) commands the spotlight with his trademark manic energy and melancholy grandeur, reminding us not only of his irresistible charm, but of his immense talents.

In a story spanning 50 years, ranging from Shinjuku’s iconic Golden Gai to New York’s MoMA, Asano embraces both the dark and the light and, with his luminous costar Kumi Takiuchi (A Balance), brings the tortured artist and his obsessions to exhilarating life. With the support of the Fukase Archives, Oscar- and BAFTA-nominated director Gill (The Voorman Problem, England Is Mine) creates an achingly poetic film driven by a pulsating yesteryear soundtrack, shot with exquisite period sensitivity, tinged with magical realism, and layered with Fukase’s own iconic images, evoking the fractured beauty of a life lived on the knifepoint of genius and madness.

Tuesday, July 22 at 6:00 p.m.

SVA Theatre – 333 W. 23rd Street

Admission: $15

Samurai Fury

2025 | 135 minutes | Japanese with English subtitles

U.S. Premiere

Yu Irie’s thrilling jidaigeki epic vividly portrays rebellion during Japan’s tumultuous Muromachi period. Hasuda (Yo Oizumi), a rogue warrior reminiscent of Mifune, gathers a crew of fighters, including a bojutsu prodigy (Kento Nagao), to challenge the oppressive shogunate. Mixing spaghetti-western grit, wuxia flair, and dynamic swordplay, this adaptation of Ryosuke Kakine’s novel is brilliantly filmed at Toei Kyoto Studio.

Samurai Fury combines breathtaking cinematography, electrifying choreography, and gripping historical drama, depicting a pivotal era’s brutality and beauty, as well as a desperate fight for justice that alters Japan’s destiny.

Friday, July 25 at 9:00 p.m.

SVA Theatre – 333 W. 23rd Street

Admission: $15

Jinsei

2025 | 93 minutes | Japanese with English subtitles

North American Premiere

2025 NYAFF Uncaged Award Nominee

Intro and Q&A with director Ryuya Suzuki

Jinsei follows the life of one man over 100 years. The main character’s life is broken up into chapters, distinguished by the evolution of his name, or rather the names he goes by. He is a child, an orphan, a budding J-pop star, an outcast, a leader, an oracle. Employing a lo-fi style, director Ryuya Suzuki immerses the viewer in this man’s life, and as each chapter evolves so does the picture’s framing, color palette, and editing style.

Epic in scope, Jinsei is one of the most original Japanese animated films in years. Over nearly two years, newcomer Suzuki wrote, directed, animated, and edited this tour-de-force by himself, determined to bring his captivating vision to life. Essential, experiential viewing, this is one that must be seen on the big screen.

Sunday, July 27 at 6:00 p.m.

SVA Theatre – 333 W. 23rd Street

Admission: $15

Babanba Banban Vampire

2025 | 105 minutes | Japanese with English subtitles

Love bites, and so does he—but only when the neck is ripest. In this adaptation of Hiromasa Okujima's cult manga, 450-year-old vampire Ranmaru (Ryo Yoshizawa) works at a traditional bathhouse while stalking his next meal: 15-year-old heir Rihito (Rihito Itagaki), whose virgin blood he craves. When Rihito falls for a classmate, Ranmaru declares war. His desperate sabotage attempts turn the town into a battlefield of cockblocking chaos.

Director Shinji Hamasaki delivers this BL-tinged bloodbath with fang-sharp wit, featuring a 2025 remix of the classic bathhouse anthem "Ii Yu da na." One question remains: Is protecting your dinner's virginity harder than immortality itself?

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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.

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 7/24/23 Susan McCormac 7/24/23

JAPAN CUTS Film Festival Returns to Japan Society

JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film

Wednesday, July 26 through Sunday, August 6

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

Admission: $18 Nonmembers | $14 Japan Society Members | $16 Seniors and Students

Japan Society presents 16th annual JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film, its first fully in-person JAPAN CUTS since 2019. The largest festival showcasing contemporary Japanese cinema in North America, this year’s JAPAN CUTS takes place from July 26 through August 6 and features more than 25 films. From major blockbusters to indie darlings, narratives, documentaries, experimental and short films, and anime, the festival truly celebrates the breadth of Japanese cinema.

There will be five International Premieres, ten North American Premieres, seven U.S. Premieres, three East Coast Premieres, and three New York Premieres. Six special guests and two parties are also on the schedule. One of the special guests is acclaimed actor Yuya Yagira, who will receive the JAPAN CUTS 2023 CUT ABOVE Award for Outstanding Achievement in Film for his role in the festival’s Centerpiece film, Under the Turquoise Sky by director KENTARO. Yagira has starred in more than 50 films and television series, and with his performance as the lead role in Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Nobody Knows, he became the youngest actor ever to win the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival.

To purchase tickets, please visit Japan Society’s website. Great news for JapanCulture•NYC members! Japan Society is generously offering a 15% discount for all screenings. If you are a JapanCulture•NYC member, you’ll receive a special discount code via email. Not a member yet? It’s easy! Simply go to JapanCulture-NYC.com to register!

JAPAN CUTS Full Schedule

Wednesday, July 26

The First Slam Dunk – 7:00 p.m. SOLD OUT
Dir. Takehiko Inoue | 2022 | 124 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Shugo Nakamura, Jun Kasama, Shinichio Kamio, Subaru Kimura, Kenta Miyake
East Coast Premiere. Winner of the Japan Academy Film Prize for Best Animation of the Year. SLAM DUNK is a beloved manga which was serialized from 1990-1996 and has sold m 170 million copies globally. THE FIRST SLAM DUNK marks original manga creator Takehiko Inoue’s directorial debut and is the first new feature-length film from the iconic franchise in 33 years. The film follows Shohoku High School basketball team point guard Ryota Miyagi (Shugo Nakamura) as he takes the stage at the Inter-High School National Championship, and the pressure to challenge the reigning champions is on! Can Ryota and his teammates defeat the imposing Sannoh Kogyo High School?
Followed by Opening Night Party

Thursday, July 27

SHORT CUTS Program 1 – 3:30 p.m.
Flashback Before Death
Dir. Rii Ishihara and Hiroyuki Onogawa | 2022 | 30 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Rii Ishihara, Masatoshi Kihara, Hanae Seike
North American Premiere. The directorial debut of composer Hiroyuki Onogawa—best known for his collaborations with Sogo (Gakuryu) Ishii starting with August in the Water (1995)—and his wife, Rii Ishihara, Flashback Before Death is a cryptic and eerie short composed of disassociated flashbacks that follow a young man’s return home in 1930s Japan.

Silent Movie
Dir. Masamichi Kawata, Satoru Hirohara, and Hiroshi Gokan | 2022 | 56 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Ichiro Kataoka, Hiroaki Kawaguchi, Ikuhiko Aoyama
International Premiere. Nine students and three alumni from Tokyo University of the Arts’ Film Department create eleven silent films spanning samurai tales, mysteries, thrillers, animation, and even giant monsters. See the next generation of filmmakers play with cinema’s past. All films narrated by renowned benshi storyteller Ichiro Kataoka.

JOO5311 – 6:00 p.m.
Dir. Hiroki Kono | 2022 | 93 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Kazuaki Nomura, Hiroki Kono
International Premiere. Winner of the Grand Prize at the 2022 Pia Film Festival, this impressive bare-bones debut feature by actor-turned-director Hiroki Kono (Special Actors) follows 26-year-old salaryman Kanzaki (Kazuaki Nomura) as he attempts to leave Tokyo for an unidentified location hours away. Unable to go by taxi, he solicits the help of a petty thief (Kono) to drive him in exchange for ¥1 million in cash—a mysterious offer with grim implications. A deeply affecting minimalist road movie that makes daring use of long takes, handheld camera work and silence—written, directed, edited and co-starring Kono—J005311 is low-budget independent filmmaking par excellence.

Best Wishes to All – 9:00 p.m
Dir. Yuta Shimotsu | 2023 | 89 min.| Japanese with English subtitles |. With Kotone Furukawa
North American Premiere. What would you do for happiness? Director Yuta Shimotsu answers in his feature film debut. Executive produced by Takashi Shimizu (creator of Ju On: The Grudge) and starring Kotone Furukawa (Berlinale Silver Bear winner for Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Wheel Of Fortune And Fantasy), Best Wishes to All follows a young woman’s visit to her grandparents’ home and her discovery of what’s brought them happiness—a revelation that will lead her to question her choices, sanity, and reality itself. Best Wishes to All starts slow and builds to a frantic, manic, and disturbingly satisfying end.

Friday, July 28

SHORT CUTS Program 2 – 3:30 p.m.
Detouring Blue
Dir. Ryo Kimura | 2023 | 24 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Saori Mori, Mai Hikagedate, Ami Kamimura
New York Premiere. In the dark of the Tokyo night, two women talk about their past, their youth, and their dreams. Beautifully shot and told with vivid colors, Detouring Blue looks at the wistfulness of the past, the weight of the present—and if who we were can ever be who we are today.

Okamoto Kitchen
Dir. Gerald Abraham | 2023 | 12 min. | English | With Cristina Vee.
East Coast Premiere. A crowd-funded anime from LA’s very real Japanese fusion comfort food truck Okamoto Kitchen, JAPAN CUTS presents the start of this global project blending Japanese and Western talent to create a unique cross-cultural flavor. Featuring character designs by Takuya and Asusa Saito, key art by anime studio Magic Bus, music by Layla Lane, and starring voice actress Cristina Vee.

Setagaya Game
Dir. Go Ohara and Ken Ohara | 2022 | 40 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Reiji Takahashi, Akari Natsume, Sho Iizaka.
International Premiere. Big action on a little budget, brothers Go and Ken Ohara bring together years of stunt and action directing experience to tell the tale of Takeru (Reiji Takahashi) and the deadly game he’s forced to play. The clock is ticking for him to save a life, but is the game really what it seems?

I Am What I Am – 6:00 p.m.
Dir. Shinya Tamada | 2022 | 105 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Toko Miura, Atsuko Maeda
North American Premiere. Thirty-year-old Kasumi (Toko Miura in her first starring role since Drive My Car) works at a call center and lives at home with her family, often pestered by her worrisome mother who desperately wants her to get married, even going so far as to set up an omiai, or arranged marriage interview, to marry her off. The reality is that Kasumi cannot harbor romantic feelings for others. Aided by her cheerful and equally outsider friend Maho, played by the ever-charming Atsuko Maeda, Kasumi simply desires to live without the rigid gender roles and expectations that dictate how young women should submit themselves to constructed ideals of love and marriage. An anti-rom com by any measure, I Am What I Am is a liberating departure from the conceit that romantic love equates happiness and a life fulfilled.

Plastic © 2023 Nagoya University of Arts and Sciences

Plastic – 9:00 p.m.
Dir. Daisuke Miyazaki | 2023 | 104 min | Japanese with English subtitles | With An Ogawa, Takuma Fujie, Kyoko Koizumi
Q&A with director Daisuke Miyazaki.
International Premiere. Decades after the breakup of their favorite band Exne Kedy and the Poltergeists (a fictional project by artist Kensuke Ide and producer You Ishihara of Yura Yura Teikoku fame), music obsessives Jun and Ibuki (An Ogawa, Heaven Is Still Far Away) bond over their mutual love for the ‘70s glam rock band, falling deeply in love in the process. But as difficulties arise in their dreams and priorities, the couple break apart. The surprise announcement of an Exne Kedy reunion, however, brings promise of a new tomorrow. The latest from director Daisuke Miyazaki (Tourism), Plastic is a life-affirming jolt to the system, celebrating the cosmic power of music and the joys of growing up and falling in love in a charming and heartfelt coming of age tale.

Saturday, July 29

Father of the Milky Way Railroad – Noon
Dir. Izuru Narushima | 2023 | 128 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Koji Yakusho, Masaki Suda, Nana Mori
U.S. Premiere. Virtually unknown as a writer in his lifetime, the poet and novelist Kenji Miyazawa (1896-1933) is among Japan’s most read and beloved authors of children’s stories. This moving biopic—based on the best-selling, Naoki Prize-winning novel named after Miyazawa’s most famous story—traces the genius writer’s brief but amazing life through his relationship with his loving father Masajiro (Koji Yakusho), a successful pawnbroker and modern man of the Meiji era who struggles to keep up with his eccentric son’s ambitions. A wonderfully heartfelt tribute to the “Hans Christian Andersen of Japan,” played with gusto by Masaki Suda (Teiichi: Battle of Supreme High).

I Am a Comedian – 3:30 p.m.
Dir. Fumiari Hyuga | 2022 | 108 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Daisuke Muramoto
North American Premiere. After winning a 2013 manzai competition with his partner (performing together as Woman Rush Hour), standup comedian Daisuke Muramoto begins using his act to address politically verboten social issues such as nuclear disasters and Zainichi Korean discrimination. Before long, the pair’s television opportunities disappear—a consequence of the widely understood but unwritten rule that comedians making political comments in Japanese media are simply “not tolerated.” In this intimate documentary, director Fumiari Hyuga (Tokyo Kurds) follows Muramoto for three years as he continues to challenge the status quo as a comedian while facing the added challenges of his father’s disapproval and a worldwide epidemic.

Tokyo Melody: A Film about Ryuichi Sakamoto – 7:00 p.m. SOLD OUT
Dir. Elizabeth Lennard |1985 | 62 min. | 16mm | Japanese, English, and French with English subtitles | With Ryuichi Sakamoto, Akiko Yano
Opening comments by Akiko Yano; Screening followed by a Q&A with Director Elizabeth Lennard.
Imported 16mm Print. Filmmaker and photographer Elizabeth Lennard secures unprecedented access to Ryuichi Sakamoto during the recording of his 1984 album Ongaku Zukan in this brief-yet-insightful Franco-Japanese television co-production. A sampling of studio sessions and performances (including a piano duet with then-wife Akiko Yano), archival footage and talking head interviews, Tokyo Melody finds the eccentric artist at his creative peak, pushing the envelope to new sonic frontiers as he reflects on modern life, shifting technologies and his own creative processes. Lennard captures an awe-inspiring portrait of the extraordinary musician—one that taps into the very nature of the artist’s raison d’être and remains a testament to Sakamoto’s profound brilliance.

Hand – 9:00 p.m.
Dir. Daigo Matsui | 2022 | 99 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Akari Fukunaga, Daichi Kaneko
North American Premiere. Since her youth—and not-so-subtly informed by her own father—25-year-old Sawako (Akari Fukunaga) has had a deep curiosity about older men. Sawako’s observations and liaisons are humorous and amusing even as her fascination manifests into a scrapbook of candid photos of unassuming older “happy” men. Adroitly adapting Nao-Cola Yamazaki’s novel of the same name, Hand engages headfirst with female desire, male fragility, and self-discovery through the eyes of its witty and mild-mannered protagonist. Belonging to a string of new pinku productions celebrating 50 years of Nikkatsu’s Roman Porno, Daigo Matsui’s charming erotic tale stays true to the softcore label’s legacy (most notably, a requisite sex scene every ten or so minutes) while refreshingly modernizing its roots.
This film is unrated but not recommended for audiences under 18 years of age due to strong sexual content.

Sunday, July 30

Sanka: Nomads of the Mountain – Noon
Dir. Ryohei Sasatani |2022 | 77 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Kiyohiko Shibukawa, Rairu Sugata, Naru Komukai
North American Premiere. A stirring 1960s-set coming-of-age drama that confronts societal progress and development in Japan’s mountainous regions, Sanka: Nomads of the Mountain focuses on the life of young Norio, a Tokyo transplant who has come to live in his grandmother’s village. Living under the shadow of his strict and demanding father, Norio befriends a group of Sanka, a wandering people, who reside in the foothills beyond his home. Beautifully shot and bolstered by compelling performances, Sanka‘s human drama delivers a melancholic and moving reflection on the societal conflicts and turmoil prevalent in postwar Japan, while also depicting the struggles of a nomadic tribe when its way of life is threatened by the onset of modernity.
Winner of the JAPAN CUTS Award at the 2022 Osaka Asian Film Festival

Single8 – 2:30 p.m.
Dir. Kazuya Konaka | 2022 | 113 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Yu Uemura, Akari Takaishi
New York Premiere. After seeing Star Wars for the first time in the summer of 1978, high schooler Hiroshi (Yu Uemura) can’t stop thinking about the film’s famous opening shot of a Star Destroyer entering the frame. This obsession eventually leads him to propose making a film with his classmates for their summer festival group project, a sci-fi love story called “Time Reverse.” But will his crush Natsumi (Akari Takaishi) accept the lead role? A nostalgic, feel-good comedy that hearkens back to director Kazuya Konaka’s salad days as a student filmmaker, Single8 celebrates youth, creativity, and the life-changing possibilities of cinema.

The Legend and Butterfly © 2023 THE LEGEND & BUTTERFLY Production Committee

The Legend & Butterfly – 5:30 p.m. SOLD OUT
Dir. Keishi Otomo | 2023 | 168 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Takuya Kimura, Haruka Ayase
Introduced by and followed by a Q&A with director Keishi Otomo.
North American Theatrical Premiere. A sweeping historical romance created to celebrate Toei’s 70th anniversary, The Legend & Butterfly casts megastars Takuya Kimura as Oda Nobunaga and Haruka Ayase as his wife, Nohime. While Oda Nobunaga is one of Japan’s most well-documented historical figures, virtually no information about Nohime remains, and The Legend & Butterfly fills this mystery with a turbulent, thoroughly modern romance. A Sengoku era take on the expression “behind every great man lies a great woman,” The Legend & Butterfly sees more than 30 years of defining moments in Japanese history driven by powerful, private moments between Nobunaga and Nohime.

Tuesday, August 1

Amiko – 6:00 p.m.
Dir. Yusuke Morii | 2022 | 104 min. Japanese with English subtitles | With Kana Osawa, Arata Iura, Machiko Ono
North American Premiere. This remarkable debut from director Yusuke Morii is set in the mountainous vistas of a provincial coastal town brimming with day-to-day excitements for oddball grade-schooler Amiko, whose endless imagination fixates on insects, schoolyard crushes and even the mole on her mother’s chin. Despite her good intentions, Amiko is often misunderstood, remaining at odds with family and classmates who find her strange and whimsical ways off-putting. Featuring a truly captivating breakthrough performance by newcomer Kana Osawa—one that recalls the tour-de-force resilience of Tomoko Tabata in Moving—and a score by popular folk musician Ichiko Aoba, Amiko is charged with a palpable sense of childhood wonderment that consistently finds new and surprising ways of seeing the world, even in the face of tragedy and misfortune.

Wandering – 9:00 p.m.
Dir. Sang-il Lee | 2022 | 150 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Suzu Hirose, Tori Matsuzaka
U.S. Premiere. A sprawling account of the alleged kidnapping of a nine-year-old young girl by a university student and the years-long repercussions of the event, Wandering delves into the gray area of the circumstances in question. Fifteen years after their initial encounter, Sarasa runs into her accused captor Fumi, bringing forth a deluge of memories and recollections. Based on the novel by Yu Nagira, Wandering dwells on challenging ethical and moral complexities with director Sang-il Lee (Villain, Rage) offering no easy answers in this compelling, thought-provoking drama.
Recommended for mature audiences.

Wednesday, August 2

Saga Saga – 6:00 p.m.
Dir. Aimi Natsuto | 2023 | 114 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Rena Matsui, Sae Okazaki, Sara Kurashima
U.S. Premiere. After a brief stint as an actress in Tokyo, 28-year-old Kyoko (Rena Matsui) returns to her hometown in Saga Prefecture, Kyushu. Before long she meets Nahoko (Sae Okazaki), an eccentric young woman who introduces herself as a fan but is secretly stalking Kyoko. She also meets Anna (Sara Kurashima), a high school student under the care of her deceased mother’s best friend, whom Kyoko unwittingly learns is her half-sister. What connects these three lonely women, they soon discover, is more than just coincidence but a shared history of family trauma. An elegant, ambitious, and complex sophomore feature by writer/director Aimi Natsuto (Jeux de plage).

Winny – 9:00 p.m.
Dir. Yusaku Matsumoto | 2023 | 127 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Masahiro Higashide, Takahiro Miura, Hidetaka Yoshioka
North American Premiere. In this thrilling procedural based on true events, Masahiro Higashide (Asako I & II) plays real-life computer programmer Isamu Kaneko, inventor of the peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing program Winny, released in 2002. After Winny users are arrested for illegally uploading games and movies, Kaneko is apprehended by the Kyoto Prefectural Police department under dubious circumstances with the charged crime of intentionally “proliferating piracy” and abetting the violation of copyright laws. Recognizing the implication of Kaneko’s unjust arrest on Japan’s future computer engineers, Toshimitsu Dan (Takahiro Miura), a lawyer specializing in cybercrime, takes on the unprecedented case.

Thursday, August 3

When Morning Comes, I Feel Empty – 6:00 p.m.
Dir. Yuho Ishibashi | 2022 | 76 min. | Japanese with English subtitles |With Erika Karata, Haruka Imou, Kazuma Ishibashi
Followed by a Q&A with Director Yuho Ishibashi.
International Premiere. A delicate and gentle drama, Yuho Ishibashi’s sophomore effort softly envelops the viewer into the day-to-day life of part-time konbini worker Nozomi, charmingly played by Asako I & II’s Erika Karata. Living a simple, carefree life, Nozomi’s preoccupations include tending to home repair, awkwardly chatting with younger coworkers under the humdrum of convenience store Muzak, and stocking shelves—as well as the occasional late shift. A chance encounter with a former junior high classmate reconnects her to the world and through subtle intimations, Nozomi’s past unfolds, detailing her professional career as an overworked corporate assistant. A sensitive exploration of vying for one’s own happiness, When Morning Comes, I Feel Empty is a deeply humanizing affirmation that a fulfilling life can exist outside of societal pressure and expectation.
Winner of the JAPAN CUTS Award at the 2023 Osaka Asian Film Festival

Convenience Story – 9:00 p.m.
Dir. Satoshi Miki | 2022 | 97 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Ryo Narita, Atsuko Maeda
New York Premiere. Stuck in a rut as a deadbeat screenwriter with a reputation for unoriginal “male fantasy films,” Kato (Ryo Narita) struggles to find inspiration for his next script. That is, however, until a supernatural occurrence at a konbini transports him to an alternate dimension where he meets young, pretty Keiko (Atsuko Maeda) and her eccentric, classical music-obsessed husband. Will they provide the creative spark he needs? This latest offbeat fantasy from Satoshi Miki (It’s Me, It’s Me) takes a playful jab at the filmmaking industry and its surreal absurdities, co-scripted by longtime Japan Times film critic and writer Mark Schilling.

Friday, August 4

Under the Turquoise Sky Centerpiece Film & Party – 7:00 p.m. SOLD OUT
Dir. KENTARO | 2021 | 95 min. | Japanese and Mongolian with English subtitles | With Yuya Yagira, Amra Baljinnyam, Akaji Maro
Introduction and Q&A with Director KENTARO and Actor Yuya Yagira; Followed by Centerpiece Party.
U.S. Premiere. An international co-production bringing together a Japanese, Mongolian, French, Australian, and Chilean team, Under the Turquoise Sky from director KENTARO follows the spoiled Takeshi (played by Japanese star Yuya Yagira) who is sent out to the Mongolian countryside by his wealthy grandfather (legendary actor and Butoh master Akaji Maro). Together with his Mongolian guide (Mongolian leading man Amra Baljinnyam), Takeshi’s travels lead to stunning vistas, profound mysteries, and personal growth. A lush road movie with touches of the surreal, Under the Turquoise Sky casts a spell with humblingly beautiful directing, acting and cinematography.
The screening is followed by the Centerpiece Party.

“I believe that life is also like a road movie. Like life itself, the magic of a road movie is that you do not know where it takes you. The saturated primary colors of the Mongolian landscape serve as an example, like a reticent mentor of deep simplicity, in contrast to the protagonist Takeshi’s habitual materially rich and modern, yet monochromatic lifestyle. The landscape thus serves as a supporting “actor,” confirming the necessary presence of Amra in guiding Takeshi through an almost-shamanic rite of passage to finally understand his destiny.” —KENTARO
Under the Turquoise Sky is the recipient of the FIPRESCI International Film Critics Award

Saturday, August 5

The Fish Tale – Noon
Dir. Shuichi Okita | 2022 | 139 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Non, Yuya Yagira, Kaho
East Coast Theatrical Premiere. Director Shuichi Okita (Mori, The Artist’s Habitat) paints a whimsical portrait of very real celebrity fish expert Masayuki Miyazawa (called Meebo in the film). The Fish Tale follows Meebo’s ichthyological obsession from the rough waters of their initial years as an outcast to a rising tide of friends, family, and celebrity. Inspirationally, actress Non is cast in the lead male role, and her outsider energy enchants every frame of the film. Quickly, heartfelt, and oddball, Non delivers a joyous performance that makes it impossible not to get caught in the net of Meebo’s fish fixation.

Under the Turquoise Sky Encore Screening – 3:30 p.m. SOLD OUT
Introduction and Q&A with Director KENTARO and Actor Yuya Yagira

© People Who Talk to Plushies Are Kind Film

People Who Talk to Plushies Are Kind – 6:30 p.m.
Dir. Yurina Kaneko | 2023 | 109 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Kanata Hosoda, Ren Komai, Yuzumi Shintani
U.S. Premiere. An adaptation of the Ao Omae novella of the same name, People Who Talk to Plushies are Kind is a warm and comforting alternative to the typical youth film. Concentrating on a trio of college students, Plushies tracks their extracurricular immersion into the student-run Plushies Club. A safe haven for withdrawn and sensitive youths who prefer the company of stuffed animals, the students find differing qualities in the reflective space as director Yurina Kaneko confronts issues of masculinity, gender, and acceptance in contemporary society.

From the End of the World – 9:30 p.m.
Dir. Kaz I Kiriya | 2023 | 135 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Aoi Ito, Katsuya Maiguma, Aya Asahina | Special cameo by Shunji Iwai
U.S. Premiere. Kazuaki Kiriya’s first feature film in eight years is the story of the final two weeks of the planet Earth and the young girl (Aoi Ito) who has the power to save it. The imaginative director of Casshern and Goemon returns to the big screen with a film ripe with his trademark daring visuals and a mind- and time-bending narrative. From the ancient past to the far future, From the End of the World is a science fiction feast both deeply intimate and epic in scale that traces the ley lines of dreams, destiny, and a young girl’s heart.

Sunday, August 6

MONDAYS: See you “this” week! – Noon
Dir. Ryo Takebayash | 2022 | 83 min. | Japanese with English subtitles | With Wan Marui, Makita Sports
North American Premiere. Live. Work. Repeat. Akemi Yoshikawa (Wan Marui) pulls an all-nighter to finish an important project for a client, only to find herself working on this same project again and again. Akemi soon understands she’s stuck in a time loop, and the only way out is to convince all her co-workers and boss (played by the prolific Makita Sports) of the time-bending situation they’re in. A zany, fast-faced comedy filled with twists, turns and PowerPoints.

The Three Sisters of Tenmasou Inn – 2:30 p.m.
Dir. Ryuhei Kitamura | 2022 | 150 min. Japanese with English subtitles | With Non, Mugi Kadowaki, Riku Hagiwara
U.S. Premiere. In this supernatural tearjerker adapted from the manga by Tsutomu Takahashi, the waystation between life and rebirth is a traditional Japanese ryokan by the sea called Tenmasou Inn. When Tamae (Non) arrives there after a car accident leaves her body in a coma, she is greeted by Nozomi (Yuko Oshima), the inn’s polite proprietress, and laid-back Kanae (Mugi Kadowaki)—half-sisters that Tamae never knew she had. Despite protestations from the irascible matriarch Kyoko (Shinobu Terajima), the effervescent Tamae starts working at Tenmasou, taking time to process her liminal state while discovering the history she shares with her sisters, including their absent father.

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

Remaining Japanese Films at NYAFF

24th New York Asian Film Festival

Saturday, July 19 at 9:15 p.m.

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

Sunday, July 20 at 3:15 p.m.

Sunday, July 20 at 4:30 p.m.

Sunday, July 20 at 6:15 p.m.

Sunday, July 20 at 9:00 p.m.

Tuesday, July 22 at 6:00 p.m.

Friday, July 25 at 9:00 p.m.

Sunday, July 27 at 6:00 p.m.

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

Explore the Family Dynamic at Japan Society

Family Portrait: Japanese Family in Flux

Lineup and Schedule

About the ACA Cinema Project

JAPAN CUTS Film Festival Returns to Japan Society

JAPAN CUTS Full Schedule

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