9/26/2005

The 19th Tokyo International Film festival (better known as TIFF) will be held in roppongi Virgin theater from the 22nd to the 30th of October.
On the international side of it, the program is nice: The Brother Grimm, Sympathy for lady Vengeance, Wallace & Grommit: curse of the were rabbit. Walk the line (the Johnny Cash biopic) and Oliver Twist.
The jury will be presided by Zhang Yimou which last movie Riding alone for thousand miles will open the event.
There’s a huge selection of movies from all over asia, of course if you don’t read perfect japanese it might be hard to keep up with the subtitles. But if you speak chinese, thai, tagalog, korean and vietnamese it should be no problem. Unless a cambodian movie shows up then you’re screwed.
Any way other notable movies are : Trio, a 1997 comedy by Chan Wook Park, Rikidozan a biopic of the korean wrestler, Under the same moon, the new Kenta Fukasaku movie starring Kubozuka, and The Whispering of the Gods one of the best japanese film of 2005 according to Donald Richie.
The official website is in japanese and english. The english version is not finished though and the translation feel automated.