city Tokyo, county Story: Last News

Matt Minton mminton@variety.com In the years since Bong Joon Ho made Oscar history with “Parasite”s best picture victory in 2020, the Korean director’s fanbase continued to grow and evolve around the world. And with the recent release of his capitalistic satire “Mickey 17” starring Robert Pattinson, the time feels right to celebrate his genre-defying work over the years.

Rafa Sales Ross Guest Contributor Gabriel Mascaro’s “The Blue Trail,” playing in competition in Berlin, marks another great milestone for Brazilian cinema in a year where the country got its first best picture Oscar nomination with Walter Salles’ “I’m Still Here.” Mascaro follows in the footsteps of Salles playing in competition in Venice and Karim Aïnouz playing in competition at Cannes with “Motel Destino,” three consecutive Brazilian films playing in the most prestigious strands of the three most important European film festivals. “Each one of these films is so different from each other but has great strengths,” Mascaro tells Variety ahead of his Berlinale bow.

Ethan Shanfeld Max and HBO have announced a multi-year deal extension with The Criterion Collection to continue bringing its catalog of films to streaming. As part of the deal extension, a handful of films will also be newly available on Max, including Isabella Rossellini’s “Green Porno” (2008), Héctor Babenco’s “Kiss of the Spiderwoman” (1985), Mira Nair’s “Mississippi Masala” (1991), Alejandro Amenábar’s “Open Your Eyes” (1997) and Nicolas Roeg’s “Walkabout” (1971). The streamer will also add three “Godzilla” titles: Koji Hashimoto’s “The Return of Godzilla” (1984), Kazuki Ōmori’s “Godzilla vs.

Naman Ramachandran TIFFCOM, the film market attached to the Tokyo International Film Festival, is poised to exceed last year’s attendance of 3,851 participants, with visitor registrations already matching 2023’s total ahead of its opening, according to CEO Shiina Yasushi. The event, which also encompasses the Tokyo Gap-Financing Market and the Tokyo Story Market, has significantly expanded its seminar programming this year, moving from a single venue to three locations and increasing from seven to fifteen sessions. “These sessions will cover the latest trends and success stories across various genres, including film, TV and anime, with a focus on Japan and Asia,” Shiina said.

EXCLUSIVE: Brian Tee (Chicago Med, Expats) is set to produce the anthology limited series The Scapegoat. The project is currently being shopped around to streamers and premium cablers.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief TIFFCOM, the rights market that sits alongside the Tokyo International Film Festival, is celebrating its return to an in-person format for the first time since 2019, with a move to another venue and the launch of the new Tokyo Story Market. The three-day market (Oct. 25-27) will relocate from Ikkebukuro to the Tokyo Metropolitan Industrial Trade Center (aka Hamamatsucho-Kan) in Hamamatsucho district.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Ozu Yasujiro, the leading Japanese film director behind classics including “Tokyo Story” and “Late Spring,” has had his double birth and death anniversaries – Ozu died in 1963 on the day of his 60th birthday, a little more than a year after the release of his last film “An Autumn Afternoon” – celebrated throughout 2023 at places as varied as the Cannes Film Festival, Los Angeles’ Margaret Herrick Library and the Taiwan Film & Audiovisual Institute. But it falls to October’s Tokyo International Film Festival to put on this year’s biggest and most comprehensive reconstruction of Ozu’s surprisingly varied career. Working in conjunction with the National Film Archive of Japan, the festival will present an extensive retrospective that covers almost all the films that Ozu directed (TIFF/NFAJ Classics: Ozu Yasujiro Week) from Oct. 24-29. Ozu spent his entire career, from camera assistant in 1923 to renown director in 1962, as an employee of major Japanese studio Shochiku, with all the advantages and disadvantages such an arrangement brought. While Ozu is best known for his stripped-down dramas, often centered on family relationships, sometimes troubled or contentious, involving parents and young or grown-up children, many hinging on questions of marriage, generational misunderstandings or the loneliness of the elderly, the director’s register may not entirely have been of his own choosing. “The apparent consistency of the post-war films surely owes as much to this production situation as to Ozu’s aesthetic choices,” wrote critic Tony Rayns in a recent Sight & Sound portrait.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Noted Japanese director Ando Momoko (“Kakera: Pieces of Our Life,” “0.5mm”) has been named as the ambassador for this year’s Tokyo International Film Festival. She also features, alongside her father Okuda Eiji in the festival’s newly-released poster, which recreates a scene from Ozu Yasujiro’s “Tokyo Story” and in which Okuda and Ando represent the classic film’s Ryu Chishu and Hara Setsuko characters. The poster image, shot at the rooftop garden of Kitte Marunouchi Building, with Tokyo Station in the background, was designed by Koshino Junko, who has created the festival’s key visuals for the past three years.

Tim Gray Senior Vice President This year, all the Oscar-contending directors are nominated for original screenplay: the Daniels (Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert), Todd Field, Martin McDonagh, Ruben Östlund and Steven Spielberg (writing with Tony Kushner). This is the first time it’s happened in AMPAS history.  The only year that came close was 2017, when all five helmers had written or co-written their scripts, though they didn’t all get writing noms. So here’s Film History 101. In Hollywood lore, Preston Sturges is often credited as the first scribe to become a hyphenate, as writer-director of the 1940 “The Great McGinty.” But as with all Hollywood “facts,” there is only an element of truth here.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefBruce Tuchmann-backed Rialto International has launched a branded on-demand streaming service in Japan, focused on independent film, and housed on Amazon’s Prime Video Channels platform.Rialto Channel launched in 1999 in New Zealand, where it was initially branded as The Sundance Channel. It established itself as an award-winning and industry-leading indie film destination for over twenty years.In Japan, the Rialto-branded venue will feature current and iconic independent films.