[KineJapan] 23rd Nippon Connection film festival: First highlights

[Florian Höhr]

Dear KineJapan subscribers,

The first highlights of the 23rd Nippon Connection Film Festival are set!
>From June 6 to 11, 2023, Frankfurt am Main in Germany will once again
become the capital of Japanese cinema. For six days, you can immerse
yourself in art and cinema from Japan at eight venues. Around 100 short and
feature-length films showcase the complete range of Japanese cinema – from
newcomers to established directors, from anime to documentaries. The film
program includes many world,  international,  European and German
premieres.

The star guest of this year’s festival is Toko Miura, best known from the
Oscar-winning drama Drive My Car (2021) by Ryusuke Hamaguchi. The actress
and singer will receive the Nippon Rising Star Award on June 11, 2023. The
new honorary award will be presented at the festival for the first time
this year and celebrates outstanding young talents in Japanese cinema. In
addition to Drive My Car, Toko Miura can be seen in the anti-love film I Am
What I Am (2022, German premiere) by Shinya Tamada and the high school road
movie Our Huff And Puff Journey (2015) by Daigo Matsui.

Nippon Connection celebrates great cinema across all genres with many
premieres and guests. In Daishi Matsunaga’s multi-award-winning queer love
drama Egoist (2022), fashion editor Kosuke falls in love with his young
fitness trainer Ryuta. This bittersweet love story, bursting with life,
will be presented at Nippon Connection as a German premiere with the
director in attendance. Plan 75 (2022) by Chie Hayakawa has also enjoyed
international success and will be shown as a German premiere at Nippon
Connection. The multi-layered debut film, sketching a provocative dystopian
future of Japan’s hyperaging society, was shown at the Cannes Film Festival
and was Japan’s entry for the Academy Award. Santa Yamagishi’s fast-paced
relationship comedy To The Supreme! (2022) scrutinizes romantic clichés and
uncovers the truths behind them.

Things get more fairytale-like in the animated film Gold Kingdom And Water
Kingdom (2023). With her feature film debut, anime director Kotono Watanabe
has succeeded in creating an imaginative take on the story of Romeo and
Juliet that delights with its unconventional characters and a fine sense of
humor. In addition, the cult anime series Future Boy Conan (1978) by Hayao
Miyazaki in the original version with German subtitles will be shown. For
fans of Japanese genre cinema, two very special gems will be shown in
Germany for the first time: In Baby Assassins (2021) and its sequel Baby
Assassins 2 Babies (2023), the two teenagers Chisato and Mahiro have an
unusual side job as tough assassins. Director Hugo Sakamoto’s wild genre
mix skillfully switches from the lightness of a slacker comedy to perfectly
choreographed action.

Japan is seen as a country of contradictions, with futuristic megacities
next to rural regions where time seems to have stopped. This year’s thematic
focus Cityscapes And Countryside, supported by the Kulturfonds Frankfurt
RheinMain, is dedicated to this contrast. The philosophical drama The Zen
Diary (2022, German premiere) by Yuji Nakae shows the life of a writer in
the mountains of Japan – with an astute eye for nature and the flowing of
the seasons. A somewhat different period film can be discovered with Okiku
And The World (2022, German premiere in presence of the producer) by Junji
Sakamoto. Set in 1858, it tells the story of two young men who sell
excrements from the capital’s toilets as fertilizer in the countryside and
meet the beautiful city girl Okiku. Filmmaker Taku Aoyagi worked as a
delivery courier in Tokyo during the pandemic and captured the experience
in his documentary Tokyo Uber Blues (2022, international premiere in
presence of the director). The documentary UMUI – Guardians Of Traditions
by Daniel López (2022, international premiere in presence of the director)
takes us to Japan’s southernmost archipelago of Okinawa and shows people
who want to preserve the local traditions of dance and music.

The complete program and tickets will be available on the festival homepage
NipponConnection.com <https://nipponconnection.com/de/start/> from May 12,
2023.

Press and professional visitors are welcome to apply for a festival
accreditation <https://nipponconnection.com/en/press/accreditation/> until
May 29, 2023.

Besides the festival centers Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm and
Produktionshaus NAXOS,

further venues will include the Eldorado Arthouse Kino, the Cinema at the
DFF – Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum, the Mal Seh’n Kino, the
NaxosAtelier and the Internationales Theater Frankfurt.

I’m looking forward to seeing you in Frankfurt!

Sincerely,

Florian Höhr

Program director
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