8) What Happened To Our Nest Egg!?
9) The Inugami Family
10) The Scoop
11) Ichiko
12) Sakura
13) Bushido
14) Day and Night
15) Broken Commandment
16) To Mom, With Love
17) We Make Antiques!
18) Qualia
19) Rude to Love
20) Carmen Comes Home
#JFTFP25
Having thought about it, I think my ranking of the 20(!) films I saw at the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme this year would be:
1) Penalty Loop
2) A Samurai in Time
3) Let’s Go Karaoke!
4) In the Wake
5) Hope
6) Stay Mum
7) Ghost Cat Anzu
#JFTFP25
5) The Inugami Family
6) The Scoop
7) Day and Night
8) Broken Commandment
9) To Mom, With Love
10) We Make Antiques!
#JFTFP25
Penalty Loop poster
Let’s Go Karaoke!
In The Wake poster
What Happened To Our Nest Egg!? poster
On the train home after the last weekend of this year’s #JFTFP25 at Quad in Derby. I’ll think about my overall ranking when I get home, but my ranking of this weekend’s films are:
1) Penalty Loop
2) Let’s Go Karaoke!
3) In the Wake
4) What Happened To Our Nest Egg!?
Back in Derby for the second weekend of the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme at Quad. Really enjoyed the second film today, Let’s Go Karaoke! Was not prepared for the surprise Cruel Angel’s Thesis lmao. #JFTFP25
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Qualia - ★★★1/2
Qualia is full of evasiveness until it decides in its finale to fully cut loose and bring all emotions to the fore. But just underneath it all, an interesting tale on gender roles is being told.
#JFTFP25
upcomingonscreen.com/qualia-%e2%98%85%e2%98%8...
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Hope - ★★★1/2
Tsutsumi Yukihiko's Hope is a family drama that stretches itself to also be a cutting indictment of media standards and their effects on the families they report on. Despite the iffy finale, it convincingly hits the landing.
#JFTFP25
https://upcomingonscreen.com/hope/
Second in #HOMEmcr Japan Foundation #JFTFP25 film programme is the 2021 thriller directed by #ZezeTakahisa called #InTheWake / #護られなかった者たちへ
Beginning #HOMEmcr "Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme 2025" #JFTFP25 / "Am I Right? Justice, Justification and Judgement in Japanese Cinema" was Yasuda Junichi comedic jidaigeki #ASamuraiInTime / #侍タイムスリッパー(trans. Samurai Time Slipper)
#JFTFP25 ranked:
- Let's Go Karaoke!
- All the Long Nights
- A Samurai in Time
- Bushido
- Ghost Cat Anzu
- Ichiko
- Rude to Love
- To Mom with Love
- Stay Mum
- What Happened to Our Nest Egg!?
- 99% Cloudy...Always
Director Akihiro Toda in the middle
#JFTFP25
Ichiko - Akihiro Toda transfers his play to an imperfect yet quite robust film that succeeds at keeping you invested in the mystery of its vague, tragic titular character. Nothing major in the realm of mystery narrative, it still serves a gruesome critique of Japan’s exclusionary practices.
#JFTFP25
Gambling as a conversation, addiction as an inseparable force, morality as a game. Patient to a fault, Bushido is a throwback of solid build and craftsmanship. While not without its digital setbacks, Shiraishi takes the aesthetic of the jidaigeki deeply seriously and it shows. Kinda rules!
#JFTFP25
Sho Miyake’s magical All the Long Nights conveys all the empathy and respect for the mentally ill that few other films in the world would offer them, let alone anyone. Captures moments most precious in the workplace and Japan’s mundane constraints; pure, sensitive comfort on 16mm celluloid.
#JFTFP25
99% Cloudy… Always - Could easily see shades of myself here, my doubts over my eligibility as a parent but also how panicky I get in the kitchen. Sangoumi’s melodrama taps deep into specific neurodivergent anxieties, yet its convictions get overshadowed by its frustrating lack of identity.
#JFTFP25
Rude to Love - A hauntingly accurate portrayal of OCD. While certain tonal elements feel detached from its introspective nature, Noriko Eguchi gets a noteworthy character out of someone so relatably agitated by everyone and everything that she can only ever be happy with a chainsaw in hand.
This weekend at #JFTFP25 there was one film (Rude to Love) where the screening had a really bad audio problem in which characters would often be silent when talking on-screen then suddenly become very loud when off-screen, some sounds were muffled or hard to hear etc.
A Samurai in Time film poster
Hope film poster
Stay Mum film poster
Ghost Cat Anzu film poster
On the train home from a great weekend of Japanese films in Derby at Quad for #JFTFP25. I think my ranking of the films I saw would be:
1) A Samurai in Time
2) Hope
3) Stay Mum
4) Ghost Cat Anzu
5) Ichiko
6) Sakura
7) Bushido
8) Qualia
9) Rude to Love
10) Carmen Comes Home
#JFTFP25
What Happened to Our Nest Egg!? - Money is dumb, and how we spend money is even dumber. This whimsical satire tackles the many ways the economy can be dumb in unsparing albeit vignetted fashion, yet while it never loses sight of its heart, it quickly runs out of steam at nearly two hours.
#JFTFP25
Let’s Go Karaoke - “Kid teaches the mob karaoke” sounds like a concept that would have killed at the US box office four decades ago, but would it have been as good without the yakuza? Yamashita executes an already wacky concept with deadpan wit, striking heart and a hilarious Eva reference.
#JFTFP25
To Mom, With Love - Imagine His Three Daughters’ psychotic twin. Hard to shake how it is so blatantly made for the small screen, but the comically dysfunctional sister dynamic, plus the boyfriend being the biggest manboy himbo you’ve ever seen, make for memorable, even nerve-racking farce.
Director Kôsai Sekine in the middle
#JFTFP25
Stay Mum cleverly upends your perspective on its characters’ behaviour from scene to scene, and raises sound arguments regarding memory as a burden and dementia as release. Its second half eventually starts to grow literal, messy and drawn out, only to make up for this with its final scene.
On the train to Derby for the first of my two annual visits to Quad for the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme. #JFTFP25
THE JAPAN FOUNDATION TOURING FILM PROGRAMME 2025 announces full programme of films - Running 7 February to 31 March 2025
screen-one.net/the-japan-fo...
#Japan #Touring #Filmsky #Moviesky #JFTFP25
What Happened to Our Nest Egg!?
99% Cloudy...Always
All the Long Nights
A Samurai in Time
My record-breaking #JFTFP25 journey:
- Stay Mum
- To Mom with Love
- Let's Go Karaoke!
- In the Wake
- What Happened to Our Nest Egg!?
- Rude to Love
- We Make Antiques!
- 99% Cloudy...Always
- All the Long Nights
- Bushido
- A Samurai in Time
- Ichiko
Already seen:
- Ghost Cat Anzu
I'm looking forward to taking the lead on screenings from #JFTFP25 at QUAD - Derby. We'll be showing 20 films across two weekends of screenings. Its always a fun time.
Full info and ticket bookings can be found at www.derbyquad.co.uk/jftfp/
