This weekend, celebrating Culture Day in Tokyo is easy with a film festival and major art exhibition taking place all in one neighborhood: Ginza.
The Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF), already well underway, features a lineup of film screenings and panels throughout Ginza and its neighboring areas. It’s a good opportunity to see noteworthy Japanese films with English subtitles, with the weekend’s offerings including Tetsuichiro Tsuta’s “Black Ox,” the first feature-length film in Japan to partly use 70 mm film, and Yusuke Morii’s poetic “Route 29.” Also, check out “Teki Cometh,” Yoshida Daihachi’s tale about a retired college professor whose peace is disturbed by a message telling him that his "teki" (enemy) is arriving. Also screening, with a Q&A afterward, is Hokkaido director and producer Takeshi Fukunaga’s “Ainu Puri,” which follows a father and son living in an indigenous Ainu community on Japan’s northernmost island.
From TIFF’s inaugural Women’s Empowerment section, curated by senior programmer Andrijana Cvetkovikj, “Montages of a Modern Motherhood” from Hong Kong screens Saturday with a Q&A to follow. For a deeper dive into women’s issues in film, register for the free “Symposium on Women's Empowerment: Women Directors Keep Paving the Way,” which takes place Monday. In the festival’s Competition section, Taiwanese film “Daughter’s Daughter,” which had its Asian premiere on Tuesday and screens again Monday, is an emotionally charged exploration of womanhood and motherhood.
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