The Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre's unprecedented 9th annual TORONTO JAPANESE FILM FESTIVAL will be held online from Saturday, October 3 to Thursday, October 22 and features 22 films using the SHIFT72 festival platform. For the first time, TJFF is expanding its reach beyond Toronto to audiences across all of Canada, maintaining the festival's sense of community while promoting friendship, understanding, and exchange between the Japanese and broader Canadian community. The festival has grown into one of the largest film events of its kind in the world and is recognized by the Japanese film industry as a vital conduit for bringing Japanese film to international audiences.
TJFF 2020 also presents major award winners for their Canadian premieres: Mitsuhito Fujii's THE JOURNALIST which won the Japanese Academy Awards for Best Film, Best Actor (Tori Matsuzaka) and Best Actress (Eun-kyung Shim); Hirohiko Arai's intense erotic odyssey IT FEELS SO GOOD (Kinema Junpo Awards for Film and Best Actress and Best Film Awards from Eiga Geijutsu Magazine and the Yokohama Film Festival); Nobuhiro Suwa's haunting VOICES IN THE WIND (Special Mention, Berlin International Film Festival) about a young woman hitchhiking across from Hiroshima to Tohoku to an actual pilgrimage spot called the “wind phone”: a disconnected telephone booth where 3.11 (2011 Fukushima earthquake-tsunami) mourners go to speak with people they've lost.
TJFF 2020's programme reflect the rich diversity of the world 4th largest film industry: North American and Canadian premieres include Kazuya Shiraishi's latest masterpiece ONE NIGHT, Yukiko Mishima's erotic drama THE SHAPE OF RED, Renpei Tsukamoto's foodie-friendly mother-daughter dramedy BENTO HARRASSMENT; Takumi Saitoh's hallucinogenic COMPLY+-ANCE, Isshin Inudo's reimagining of the Jack Nicholson/Morgan Freeman buddy comedy THE BUCKET LIST with two if Japan's top female performers Sayuri Yoshinaga and Yuki Amami and Takahisa Zeze's devastating mystery and exploration of the limits of trust, THE PROMISED LAND based on Shuichi Yoshida's crime stories.
Japan's most beloved comedy film series celebrates its 50th anniversary with its 50th film in Yoji Yamada's TORA-SAN, WISH YOU WERE HERE while Masaharu Fukuyama and Yuriko Ishida burn up the screen in Hiroshi Nishitani's international story of romance and classical music AT THE END OF THE MATINEE.
The samurai are also well-represented in lavish period comedies like: Isshin Inudo's SAMURAI SHIFTERS, and Yoshihiro Nakamura's 47 RONIN IN DEBT.
Other screenings include: Koki Mitani's smash political farce HIT ME ANYONE ONE MORE TIME, Kiyoshi Kurosawa's TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH, Naofumi Higuchi's THE MASTER OF FUNERALS, Tsutomu Hanabusa's PROJECT DREAM – HOW TO BUILD MAZINGER Z'S HANGAR (fantasy film based on real life facts inspired by the popular anime series and manga) , Soichiro Komatsu's documentary FUZJKO: THE PIANIST OF SILENCE AND SOLITUDE, Koichiro Miki's THE TRAVELLING CAT CHRONICLES, and anime hits DETECTIVE CONAN: FIST OF THE BLUE SAPPHIRE and SUMIKKO GURASHI: THE MOVIE.
The TORONTO JAPANESE FILM FESTIVAL's mandate has been carefully aligned with that of the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre. In the 56 years since the opening of the JCCC, film has been an important tool in creating friendship, understanding, and exchange between the Japanese and broader Canadian community. Ticket sales from the festival also help to drive our heritage programming which shares the important lessons of cultural acceptance and human rights, implicit in the Japanese Canadian experience with all Canadians.
TICKETS
E-Tickets will go on sale on Wednesday, September 23 starting at 00:00AM (EDT) and continue through to the end of festival on October 22 at 11:59pm.
HOW TO ACCESS THE FILMS
Films are presented on a Video on Demand basis through our online platform partner SHIFT72. The process is quite simple; just go to the TJFF 2020 website at www.torontojff.com and follow the prompts.
For full program, ticket and box-office info go to the official website
