EVENT: NEW FILMS FROM JAPAN 2023
DATES: February 10-16, 2023
VENUE: NYU / IFC Center
Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan (ACA) announces the sixth ACA Cinema Project series – New Films from Japan – organized as part of its Japan Film Overseas Expansion Enhancement Project in collaboration with the IFC Center and with Visual Industry Promotion Organization (VIPO) entrusted with the operation of the project. This edition of the program will present five films that have made an impact, received critical acclaim, and won awards at film festivals around the world over the course of the past year.
Title: The Zen Diary
Director: Yuji Nakae
2022/111 min./ Japan
[STORY] Adapted from Tsutomu Mizukami’s book, The Zen Diary follows Tsutomu, a man who lives alone in the mountains, writing essays, cooking food with vegetables he grows and mushrooms he picks in the hills. His routine is happily disturbed when Machiko, his editor/love interest, occasionally visits to pester him for his next manuscript. She loves to eat, and he loves to cook for her. Tsutomu seems content with his daily life. However, a close brush with death will now force him to decide on what he values most in life and what he must choose going forward.
©2022 The Zen Diary Film Partners
Title: Thousand and One Nights
Director: Nao Kubota
2022/126 min./ Japan
[STORY] A gently paced character-study of two women brought together by their shared experience of husbands who have gone missing, Thousand and One Nights is set in a beautiful port town on a remote northern island. Thirty years have passed since Tomiko’s husband suddenly disappeared. She still doesn’t know why he disappeared or if he is still alive. She fends off the overtures from Haruo, a local fisherman, as she keeps waiting for his return, holding on to the small memories of her beloved. Then she meets Nami, a younger woman, whose husband also disappeared, two years ago. The women connect over their shared loss, as Nami searches for the reason why her husband “disappeared” in order to come to terms with her situation and move on. Then, Tomiko happens to see Yoji, Nami’s missing husband, on the street…
©️2022 Thousand and One Nights Film Partners
Title: A Man
Director: Kei Ishikawa
2022/121 min./ Japan
[STORY] Adapted from the Keiichiro Hirano novel, A MAN comments on the collective existential crisis of Japan’s “lost generation” via the journey of a troubled lawyer plunged into a web of mystery when he is asked to follow the trail of a deceased man who lived under a false identity. As he gets closer to the shocking truth, he increasingly finds himself haunted by his own unsteady place in the world.
©️2022 A Man Film Partners
Title: Small, Slow But Steady
Director: Shô Miyake
2022/99 min./ Japan
[STORY] A hearing-impaired woman with dreams of becoming a professional boxer discovers her fight isn’t just in the ring with the next opponent, but also includes the struggle simply to focus and train properly due to the threatened closure of her boxing club compounded by the illness of its aging president, who has been her biggest supporter. Despite a lack of support and understanding from her family and her own struggles with feelings of self-worth, she must push herself to the limit if she is to succeed.
©2022 Small, Slow But Steady Film Partners / COMME DES CINÉMAS
Title: Yamabuki
Director: Juichiro Yamasaki
2022/97 min./ Japan, France
[STORY] A story of finding a place to root yourself when life’s obstacles have disheartened you. Multiple characters have stories that intersect including a former equestrian athlete forced to give up on his dream works at a quarry site to work off crushing debt while trying to find happiness with a woman and her infant daughter who are estranged from the girl’s father. Meanwhile, Yambuki, a high school girl stages silent protests at a major intersection that begin to grow into community action to the dismay of her father, a widowed policeman. Everyone’s frustration and loneliness that have been lying just under the surface, increasing reveal themselves and are given a voice, which in turn begins to connect people in unexpected ways.
© 2022 FILM UNION MANIWA SURVIVANCE
Related event title：Special Conversation on Film at New York University
Speaker：Juichiro Yamasaki(Director), Thomas Looser (Associate Professor of East Asian Studies at NYU), Jeffrey Lo(Interpreter, Student of NYU)
Date: February 9, 2023
Related event title：Q&A
Speaker：Juichiro Yamasaki(Director), John Wildman, Tomoko Takedani(Interpreter)
Date: February 10, 2023
Related event title：Q&A
Speaker：Juichiro Yamasaki(Director), Takuya Tsunoda(Assistant Professor of Japanese Film and Media at Columbia University), Tomoko Takedani(Interpreter)
Date: February 11, 2023