Ando Hiroyasu: Last News

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The new co-production treaty signed between Japan and Italy is being touted as a significant step towards reintegrating Japan’s film production industry with those overseas countries. The agreement – signed in June and activated in August – was directly referenced on Monday by Japanese Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru and has colored the programming of this week’s Tokyo International Film Festival, which includes a Nanni Moretti retrospective, closes with Marcello Mastroianni tribute film “Marcello Mio” and sees his daughter Chiara Mastroianni set as a member of the festival’s main competition jury. The treaty’s ratification also gave rise to a reception Tuesday at the Italian embassy in Tokyo’s Tamachi district. “Tonight’s reception is more than a celebration — it is a call to action.

Naman Ramachandran The 37th Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) is doubling down on global networking and gender equality initiatives, according to festival chair Ando Hiroyasu. “During the COVID-19 pandemic, various restrictions made this difficult, but we are finally able to engage in genuine networking,” Ando told Variety.

As the biggest festival in one of the world’s biggest film markets, Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF, Oct 28 – Nov 6) has always been held under the glare of painfully high expectations. But taking place towards the end of Asia’s crowded autumn festival season, then struggling through the brutal years of the pandemic, it hasn’t been easy for the event to create a global footprint. 

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Veteran film, theater and opera director Julie Taymor has been set as the president of the competition jury at next month’s Tokyo International Film Festival. Taymor (“The Lion King”) will head a small group that selects the winners from the 15 competition titles that unspool in Tokyo between Oct. 24 and Nov. 2, 2022. The other four members of the jury will be announced later. Taymor is the second woman to head the jury in as many years and follows Isabelle Huppert in 2021. There was no competition in 2020 due to COVID. And in 2019, the jury was headed by China’s Zhang Ziyi.