TIFF 2004 line-up, Coffee Jiko

[mark schilling]

I thought the list might be interested in this piece on the TIFF I wrote for
Screen International. Also, my review of Coffee Jiko (Cafe Lumiere) will
appear in The Japan Times on Wednesday.

Mark Schilling
schill at gol.com

TIFF announces opening, closing films, jury chairman

Tokyo: The Tokyo International Film Festival has announced its lineup for
its 17th edition, which will be held from October 23 to 31 in the Bunkamura
and Roppongi Hills complexes. The two opening films are Hayao Miyazaki's
Howl's Moving Castle and Yoji Yamada's The Hidden Sword -- the latter a
follow-up to Yamada's Oscar-nominated The Twilight Samurai. The closing film
is The Terminal, with director Steven Spielberg and star Tom Hanks expected
to make stage appearances. Also,  TIFF General Producer Tsuguhiko Kadokawa
announced that Yamada will serve as jury chairman -- the first-ever Japanese
to assume that role.

The 15-film competition section, selected from nearly 310 entries, is
weighted toward Japanese and Asian films, including Eiji Okuda's Runin -- 
Banished, Kenneth Bi's Rice Rhapsody, Chang Hyun-soo's Everybody Has
Secrets, Im Chan-sang's The President's Barker and Cheng Wen-tang's The
Passage.

Meanwhile, the fest has doubled the size of its Winds of Asia section for
Asian films, from 15 to 30. Among the special WoA sections are one dedicated
to new talents in the Philippine film industry, one to Hong Kong director
Pang Ho Cheung, one to Indian producer Yash Johar and one to digitally
restored films from the 1950s to 1970s by Hong Kong actiion auteur Chang
Cheh.

Among the films in the Special Screening section are Irwin Winkler's
De-Lovely, Stephen Hopkins' The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, Stephen
Chow's new comedy Kung Fu Hustle, Yoshimitsu Morita's Umineki, Yuzuru Hoshi'
s University of Laughs and Paul McGuigan's Wicker Park, with star Josh
Hartnett scheduled to appear on stage.

This year TIFF will sponsor two markets -- a festival first. The Tokyo
International Entertainment Market 2004, to be held from October 22 to 24 at
the Nippon Convention Center, will specialize in comics, anime, games and
films. A total of 92 companies have signed on to exhibit so far, including
major Japanese publishers, animation houses, TV stations and film companies.
They will be selling rights for a wide range of Japanese contents including
the Pokemon and Gundam franchises.

Meanwhile, the Tokyo International Film & Contents Market 2004 will be held
from October 25 to 27 at Roppongi Hills in downtown Tokyo. Most of the 70
exhibitors signed up so far are Japanese, including the major distributors
Toho, Toei and Shochiku and the Fuji TV, NTV, TBS and TV Asahi networks.
Korean, Chinese and Hong Kong companies will also be out in force.

Among other events scheduled in conjunction with the TIFF are the Nippon
Cinema Classics section, the Tokyo Anime Film Festival, the Tokyo
International Fantastic Film Festival and a retro dedicated to the works of
Atom Egoyan.