Tokyo International Film Festival

©2019 TIFF

Takeo HISAMATSU, Festival Director of the 32nd TIFF, discussed this year’s TIFF highlights, while Japan Now Programming Advisor Kohei ANDO discussed the Japan Now Section. During the Q&A session, Yamada made remarks and shared his thoughts about being selected as this year’s Opening Film.

The 32nd TIFF  takes place October 28 to November 5, 2019 at Roppongi Hills, EX Theater Roppongi, Hibiya Step Square and other venues in Tokyo.

Quotes from the Press Conference

–Takeo HISAMATSU, Festival Director, 32nd TIFF
This 32nd TIFF is held in the first year of the Reiwa era. Next month, the new emperor’s enthronement ceremony will be held, and guests will be coming to Japan from all over the world. We also have the Tokyo Olympics next year, which has drawn a lot of attention to Japan. So we’ve decided to highlight Japan in this year’s TIFF. We are opening with Yoji Yamada’s Tora-san, Wish You Were Here. I am personally privileged to showcase it as the Opening Film as I am one of Yamada-san’s fans and I worked with him at Shochiku. We also have a Gala screening of Masayuki Suo’s Talking the Pictures. Japan Now will feature legendary filmmaker Nobuhiko Obayashi, and in the Classics section, we’ll focus on legendary actress Machiko Kyo, who passed away earlier this year. We’ve created a new section, Japanese Animation, to deepen and broaden our coverage of this form. Also we’ll look at the VFX evolution in Japan. So Japanese films and culture will be highlighted, which I think will be significant for everyone.

-Yoji YAMADA, Director
I have made dozens and dozens of films for half a century, but making this newest film of the Tora-san series, I had a sense of surprise myself when I began to realize what kind of film I was embarking on. While we were shooting, I was still anxious about the film, but also had expectations as to what kind of film it ultimately become. While I was viewing the completed film over and over, I realized once again that it really took 50 years for me to be able to shoot this final film. So what I thought was perhaps it was my longevity, thanks to living so long, that allowed me to make this film.

Thinking of my age, it makes me feel a lot of anxiety. And I sometimes feel I should stop making films. But, directors like Clint Eastwood are still making films, so I suppose I should continue the challenge as well. Additionally, Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira and also Japanese director Kaneto Shindo, both of them shot films until the age of 100, so I have a little way to go.

The challenge of making this kind of series is that the audience always comes to see a new Tora-san film to meet him again and spend time with him, so you cannot betray the audience’s expectations, but you still have to betray the audience some way. There are various film festivals around the world, and I think TIFF represents Japan. I think it’s very important for TIFF to have a theme to differentiate itself from other festivals, a certain character or certain attraction, something that people would not find in any other festival around the world. I hope that TIFF continues to work towards that goal so that it becomes a unique film festival cannot be found anywhere else in the world.