Postcard from the 2024 Tokyo Film Festival

(Abre numa nova janela)

I should start this dispatch with a confession of my bias: Tokyo is one of my favourite cities in the world. I first visited on a solo trip in 2019, and have spent every year since saving to go back. I actually was there for four days in April of this year with my sister on holiday, but when the Tokyo International Film Festival invited Little White Lies to visit for their 37th edition in November, no 14-hour plane journey was going to stand in my way. A dazzling metropolis that seems to dwarf London in scale, ambition, technology, and hospitality, Tokyo is a dream location for a film festival, particularly considering the impact of Japanese cinema on the global film stage. 

Yet Tokyo International Film Festival might not be an event that audiences outside of the city's engaged movie-loving community are familiar with. Founded in 1985, it's certainly welcomed some high profile guests to the capital, including Gregory Peck, Norman Jewison, Tommy Lee Jones and Wim Wenders who all served as previous jury presidents. This year Tony Leung presided over the competition deliberations, while legends including Johnnie To and Kiyoshi Kurasawa dropped in for masterclasses, as the festival held its second edition post-Covid. Based in a handful of cinemas located in the city's upmarket Ginza district, it's a notably convenient city festival – the venues are all within a 10-minute walk of each other – and its late scheduling in the global release calendar means the programming team benefit from being able to screen some festival favourites from around the world.