The Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme returns for 2025 starting on the 7th February!
The Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme has always been one of the most reliable ways of seeing new and old Japanese films in the UK, especially ones Netflix wouldn’t bother with, so it’s great to see it return this year.
With a running motif of real and false injustices being committed to people, the theme this year is fitting, and somewhat of a mouthful: Justice, Justification and Judgement in Japanese Cinema.
With plenty of films to choose from it’s impossible to pick just ten to watch, but here are some I want to be seeing:
1. The Moon. Kicking us off is a film that takes a dark look at the Japanese care system. The Moon follows a writer who starts a job at a institution for the disabled, whose colleague begins to exhibit dark thoughts about his charges.
2. Tea Friends. Based off of a real-life prostitute club bust from 2013, Tea Friends deals with loneliness among the elderly, and sees a woman called Mana who founds a company Tea Friends, a call girl company that sends women to the house of the elderly looking for company.
3. Qualia. This quirky black comedy sees a wife’s search for a live-in employee leads her to her husband’s mistress, resulting in – naturally – a tangle of relationships and blurred boundaries.
4. (Ab)ormal Desire looks at the lives and desires of a seemingly disconnected group of people including a woman who fears men but loves one; two people with a fetish for spurting water, and a father who can’t handle his son’s truancy.
5. We Make Antiques! A laugh-a-minute breakout hit that spawned a franchise, the film tells of a shady antiques dealer and an impoverished potter who con connesseurs out of their money, while attempting to rip off an authenticator who wronged them both.
6. Let’s Go Karaoke!. I think I have a soft spot for movies with exclamation marks in the title. Or maybe I’m just into movies that remind me of the Yakuza games, but either way I’m looking forward to this one, in which a high school choir master is approached by a yakuza lieutenant for singing lessons before his gang’s big karaoke contest.
7. Bushido looks to be a classic samurai tale: a respected samurai and skilled Go player is falsely accused of a crime, which destroys his life. When he finds out the truth behind the accusation, he and his daughter set out to restore their honour through revenge. Even down to its title, Bushido looks to be throwback to the old samurai films we loved.
8. To Mom, With Love. A fun dysfunctional comedy-drama, the film follows three very different sisters who gather at a hot spring resort to celebrate their mother’s birthday. When one reveals some big news, everything quickly descends into chaos.
9. Carmen Comes Home. One of two retrospective titles honouring great Japanese filmmakers, Carmen Comes Home isKeisuke Kinoshita’s most famous piece and the first Japanese full-colour film. The film looks at post-war Japan’s changing sense of moral standards as dancer Carmen returns to her conservative village
10. Ghost Cat Anzu. Only a single animated film in this year’s lineup, and while its basic-anime-film structure (a lonely young person teams up with whacky mythical character), the story looks at abandonment as a lonely young girl ends up on adventure with a 6 foot tall talking cat.
The festival runs from the 7th February all the way through to 31st March all around the UK. Check out their website for more information!
The Asian Cinema Critic 