Ain't No Tomorrows (俺たちに明日はないッス, 2008)

Director Yuki Tanada, a special guest at Nippon Connection this year, is one of a number of women directors creating a niche for themselves in Japan. Traditionally, the role of director has been seen as a man’s job, but at the Podium Discussion: What’s Up With the Women?, producer Yukie Kito said that women make up 70% of filmgoers in Japan. Therefore, it only makes sense that more women should...

Digista Vol. VII

Collections of short animation at film festivals are usually hit or miss affairs. This is particularly true when the assembled films are all by students or first time animators. Not so in the case of Digista, which is sponsored by the NHK. The assembled shorts which screened at Nippon Connection on Friday were all of a very high quality.Digista is an abbreviation of ‘Digital Stadium’. The name...

Serial Dad (小森生活向上クラブ, 2008)

Ikki Katashima’s directorial debut film Serial Dad (小森生活向上クラブ/ Komori seikatsu kōjō kurabu, 2008) had it’s first screening outside of Japan at Nippon Connection last night. It is a black comedy along the lines of Kind Hearts and Coronets (Robert Harmer, 1949) and Charlie Chaplin’s Monsieur Verdoux (1947), but with the quirky fantasy mixed with unease found in many recent Japanese films like Memories...

Tokyo Sonata (トウキョウソナタ , 2008)

The premiere film at Nippon Connection in Frankfurt am Main last night was Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s critically successful film of last year, Tokyo Sonata. It tells the story of Ryuhei Sasaki (Teruyuki Kagawa), a salaryman in his late 40s who suddenly loses his job but out of shame cannot bring himself to tell his family. Instead he pretends to go to work each day, when in actual fact he is looking for...

Aquatic Language (水のコトバ, 2006)

Hokkaido-born CG animator, Yasuhiro Yoshiura (吉浦康裕), has in recent months been creating a big buzz on the internet with his Time of Eve (イヴの時間) series. Most of the hype is from fans desperate to see the next episode, whose release has been delayed by several months. The episodes are not made for TV but for release onto Yahoo Japan and Crunchyroll, so the release dates are not set in stone. Yoshiura...

Kirschblüten (Hanami/花見, 2008)

Doris Dörrie is one of Germany’s most praised filmmakers whose career really took off in the 1980s with her comedy Männer (Men, 1985). Her films over the years (features, made-for-TV, documentaries) have been rather hit and miss. The most difficult production must have been Bin ich schön? (Am I Beautiful, 1998) when her husband, the cinematographer Helge Weindler died on location in Spain. Dörrie...