HCM CITY – Sixteen Japanese films released over the last three years will be screened at the annual Japanese Film Festival in HCM City from November 2-18.

The screenings of films will feature different genres, including drama, comedy, fantasy, mystery, documentary and animation.

All of the films focus on themes of love, friendship, family and Japanese culture.

The festival will open with the 2017 drama film Close-Knit, directed and written by Naoko Ogigami, who won the Manfred Salzgeber Award for “broadening the boundaries of cinema today” at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2008.

Close-Knit is about a fifth-grade girl whose mother has given her up. She has to live with her uncle and his girlfriend, a transgender woman with a heart of gold.

The film was screened as part of the Panorama section at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2017.

The event will include the screening of director Norihiro Koizumi’s Chihayafuru, which is based on the famous manga series with the same name by Yuki Suetsugu.

The film, whose two sequels will also be shown, honours karuta, a traditional Japanese card game. The films also feature how young Japanese are preserving the game.

The festival will also screen dramas such as Kenji Shibayama’s Perfect World, Wui Shin Chong’s Yankiniku Dragon and Junichi Ishikawa’s Mixed Double, along with horror films Daihachi Yoshida’s The Scythian Lambs and Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Creepy.

Two animation films Rudolf the Black Cat by Kunihiko Yuyama and Motonori Sakakibara, and Mary and the Witch’s Flower by Hiromasa Yonebayashi will be screened as well.

All films will be shown with Vietnamese and English subtitles.

The festival, organised by the Japan Foundation Centre for Cultural Exchange in Việt Nam, will be held at CineStar Hai Bà Trưng at 135 Hai Bà Trưng Street in District 1. Tickets are available at the venue’s box office.

The festival will be launched on Đà Nẵng, Huế City and Hà Nội from November 16 to December 16.

More information about the film schedule can be seen at https://vn.japanesefilmfest.org/. — VNS