EVENT: EMERGING JAPANESE FILM 2023
DATES: SEPTEMBER 26-28, 2023
VENUE: Linwood Dunn Theater
The Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs (ACA Cinema Project Japan) sets the scene for its Los Angeles ACA Cinema Project Series which takes place from September 26th to September 28th, 2023. Three prestige live-action films, representative of emerging Japanese cinema, screen over the course of three nights for industry insiders, deal-makers, and press. The venue is the Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood. The ACA goal is to create opportunities for increased exposure, development, and appreciation of Japanese movies overseas via exhibitions, symposiums, and other ongoing events.
Title: YOKO
Director: Kazuyoshi Kumakiri
2022/ 113 min./ Japan
[STORY] Resigned to an unfulfilled life, Yoko (42) isolates herself and works as an online customer service clerk from her tiny studio apartment. When she receives news of her estranged father’s death, she reluctantly joins her cousin and his family on a road trip to the funeral in her hometown; this is to be her first visit there in 20 years. However, Yoko’s family abandons her at a highway rest stop, and then, sans cell phone or money, Yoko faces the prospect of hitchhiking to her father’s service.
© 2022 "YOKO" FILM PARTNERS
Related event title：YOKO: Director Q & A Session (Attending in person)
Speaker：Kazuyoshi Kumakiri(Director), Steve Ponde(The Wrap - Executive Editor), David Neptune(Interpreter)
Date: September 26, 2023
Title: RIPPLES
Director: Naoko Ogigami
2023/ 120min./ Japan
[STORY] Yoriko has reached middle age and is at an unenviable crossroads in life. A devotee of the cultish Green Life Water Society (Ryokumei-kai), she spends her days in intense spiritual observance. Unexpectedly, her long-estranged, cancer-riddled ex-husband re-enters her world, and tells her he is dying with cancer, upending her prayerful routine, which causes motion sickness-inducing ripple effects, such as financial pressure for his life-saving medical treatments. Additional work and familial demands escalate and carry Yoriko within steps of her personal breaking point . . . akin to a tsunami and resulting, catastrophic flood . . .
©2022 "RIPPLES" Film Partners
Related event title：RIPPLES: Director Q & A Session (Virtual attending)
Speaker：Naoko Ogigami(Director), Kristen Lopez(The Wrap - Film Editor), David Neptune(Interpreter)
Date: September 27, 2023
Title: TEA FRIENDS
Director: Bunji Sotoyama
2023/ 135 min. / Japan
[STORY] Inspired by real events, 20-something Mana leads a group of young adults who open Tea Friends, a groundbreaking escort service for the elderly. The steamy start-up runs classified ads that innocently seek ‘friends for tea.’ Mana then dispatches her mature tea girls to male respondents. Mana eventually recruits an aged shoplifter, the disillusioned Matsuko, who blossoms into one of the most popular sex workers. However, just as the whole enterprise thrives, an incident attracts police attention. The bonds of this non-biological, chosen family of Tea Friends soon prove to be brittle at best.
© 2022 “TEA FRIENDS” Film Partners
Related event title：TEA FRIENDS : Director Q & A Session
(Virtual attending)
Speaker：Bunji Sotoyama(Director), Drew Taylor(The Wrap - Reporter), David Neptune(Interpreter)
Date: September 28, 2023