Much more than manga

“In This Corner of the World”, an animated historical drama film co-written and directed by Sunao Katabuchi, opens this year’s Japanese Film Festival, which gets underway at SF World Cinema in Bangkok tomorrow.
Organised by the Japan Foundation, the event will also travel to Chiang Mai, Khon Kaen and Phuket, and kicks off a year of programmes commemorating the 130th anniversary of Thailand- Japan diplomatic relations.
The crowd-funded animation opener has won several awards since its release last year, including best-movie nods at the Yokohama and Hiroshima film festivals.
Set in Hiroshima during World War II, “In This Corner of the World” centres on an 18-year-old bride who has to prepare food for her family despite a shortage of supplies due to rationing. As she struggles with the daily loss of life’s amenities she struggles to maintain the will to live.
Other highlights of the event include Yukihiko Tutsumi’s “Sanada Ten Braves”, “Creepy” by Kiyoshi Kurosawa and “Sweet Bean (An)” by Naomi Kawase.
“Sanada Ten Braves” follows 10 members of a ninja group who serve samurai warrior Yukimura Sanada. Based on the stage play “Sanada Juyushi” by Nozomi Makino, it is set in the late Sengoku period and early Edo period and stars Masaya Kato, who is flying to Bangkok for the opening. He’ll be joined by Thai actors Chantavit Dhanasevi and Jarinporn Junkiat and award-winning director Banjong Pisanthanakun for a talk prior to the screening of the opening film.
Horror master Kurosawa, who is often compared to Fritz Lang and David Lynch, presents “Creepy”, based on a mystery novel by Yutaka Maekawa, which had audiences at the 2016 Berlin Film Festival gripping their seats in terror.
“Sweet Bean (An)”, meanwhile tells the story of a lonely Japanese baker who hires a 76-year-old woman as his assistant and soon learns she has a wonderful recipe for sweet red-bean paste.
The Bangkok leg of the festival closes out with Ryota Nakano’s “Her Love Boils Bathwater”. Learning that she doesn’t have much time left to live. Futaba decides she has four things to do before she dies, among them finding her missing husband and getting her daughter Azumi ready to stand on her own.
There will be 14 screenings in Bangkok between tomorrow and February 12, eight more at SFX Cinema Maya Chiang Mai between February 16 and 19 and seven at SF Cinema Central Plaza in Khon Kaen from March 3 to 5.
The festival then moves to Phuket from March 17 to 19 with seven films showing at SF Cinema Central Festival.
Tickets for the Bangkok and Chiang Mai showings are Bt120 and Bt80, while screenings in Khon Kaen and Phuket are free.
Audience members are also invited to join the “Watch-Write-Win” contest. The rules are easy: Watch a movie and write a review for a chance to win two economy round-trip tickets to Tokyo to attend the Tokyo International Film Festival, plus two nights’ accommodation for two people.

For more information visit http://th.JapaneseFilmFest.org or call (02) 260 8560.