Festivals
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Jazz rulebreaker Hiromi: ‘The piano is a plane that can take me anywhere’
As she arrives in the UK for London jazz festival, the Japanese pianist explains how she subverts expectations…
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Ambiguous Japanese eco-drama wins London film festival top prize
Evil Does Not Exist, directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, is about community’s fight against ‘glamping’ developmentA…
- Edinburgh film festival, Japan, MANGA, Comics and graphic novels, World news, Asia Pacific, Books, Anime, Festivals, Culture, Sport, Film, Basketball
The First Slam Dunk review – basketball is the universe in resplendent hit anime
Takehiko Inoue’s classic manga spinoff has magnificent on-court scenes, but doesn’t quite sink the backstoryAt…
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Perfect Days review – Wim Wenders explores a quiet life in Tokyo
Bittersweet tale of an apparently contented toilet cleaner has an ambient urban charm, but feels a little too …
- Japan, World cinema, Cannes film festival, Drama films, World news, Asia Pacific, Cannes 2023, Festivals, Culture, Film
Monster review – Hirokazu Kore-eda’s hydra of modern morals and manners
Japanese director Kore-eda offers a deliberately dense but ultimately hopeful examination of how to negotiate …
- Japan, Science fiction and fantasy films, World news, Asia Pacific, Anime, Festivals, Comedy films, Culture, Animation in film, Comedy, Berlin film festival, Berlin film festival 2023, Film
Suzume review – Makoto Shinkai’s charming modern Alice in Wonderland
The Your Name director’s mythic and comic new animation is an absorbing, intriguing and bewildering workHere i…
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Japan celebrates Coming of Age Day – in pictures
Japan’s Coming of Age Day (Seijin-shiki) is a national holiday held in January to recognise young people who h…
- Japan, Venice film festival, World cinema, Drama films, World news, Asia Pacific, Festivals, Culture, Venice film festival 2022, Film
Love Life review – tangled and tragic human drama about chaotic life twists
Venice film festival: Japanese director Kôji Fukada has crafted a richly painful and quietly comic human drama…
- Japan, World cinema, Drama films, World news, Asia Pacific, Festivals, Berlin film festival 2021, Culture, Berlin film festival, Film
Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy review – a triptych of light-touch philosophy
Ryusuke Hamaguchi brings a gentle warmth to this ingenious collection of three stories united by themes of fat…
- Japan, World cinema, Cannes film festival, Drama films, Haruki Murakami, World news, Asia Pacific, Books, Festivals, Culture, Film, Film adaptations
Drive My Car review – mysterious Murakami tale of erotic and creative secrets
Ryûsuke Hamaguchi reaches a new grandeur with this engrossing adaptation about a theatre director grappling wi…
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Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy review – a triptych of light-touch philosophy
Ryusuke Hamaguchi brings a gentle warmth to this ingenious collection of three stories united by themes of fat…
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Mieko Kawakami: ‘Women are no longer content to shut up’
Traditionalists in Japan hated her feminist novel, but Breasts and Eggs was a huge bestseller. The author talk…
- Music, Japan, Australia news, Coronavirus outbreak, Asia Pacific, New Zealand, Festivals, Punk, Culture
My Chemical Romance drops Australasian tour and Download festival cancelled amid coronavirus fears
New Zealand, Japan and Australia will be missing out on a defining band of emo-punk, with the event left ‘deva…
- Japan, Environment, Pollution, World news, Asia Pacific, Photography, Art and design, Festivals, Culture, Film
Minamata review – Johnny Depp attempts redemption in heartfelt look at disaster that struck Japanese town
Depp plays real-life US photojournalist W Eugene Smith who travels to cover the story of mercury poisoning tha…
- Music, Japan, Venice film festival, Cannes film festival, World news, Asia Pacific, Festivals, Culture, Film
Venice to open with Kore-eda’s The Truth, Toronto with film about the Band
Palme d’Or winner’s new film starring Catherine Deneuve to kick off the Venice film festival, while Toronto ge…