During its thirteenth edition, the CAMERA JAPAN Festival serves its 8000+ visitors with over 40 recent Japanese Hilm titles, ranging from arthouse drama to crowd-pleasing blockbusters and comedy to out-of-bounds horror. The official kick-off of the festival will take place Wednesday 26 September at WORM Rotterdam. After that, the festival will continue in the art-house cinemas of LantarenVenster in Rotterdam and Kriterion and EYE Filmmuseum Amsterdam. Ticket sales have started today.
Among the highlights of this year’s film programme, which is the largest in the history of CAMERA JAPAN, are screenings of Tokyo Vampire Hotel by renowned Filmmaker/artist and poet Sion Sono, The Trial by John Williams (a modern Japanese adaptation of Franz Kafka’s novel with the same title) and Shinichiro Ueda’s zombie festival hit: One Cut of the Dead. Several films will have their European premiere at the festival, including the tender drama Call Boy by Daisuke Miura and the low-budget omnibus Film Rokuroku: The Promise of the Witch by Yudai Yamaguchi. There will be also anime films shown during the film festival. The titles are A Letter to Momo of Hiroyuki Okiura, Mary and the Witch’s Flower of Hiromasa Yonebayashi, Okko’s Inn of Kitaro Kosaka and Pom Poko of Isao Takahata.
Nobuo Nakagawa retrospective, benshi & more
The special theme program of CAMERA JAPAN 2018 is called Superstitious?, wherein the focus lays on superstition, yokai and the supernatural. Part of this theme program are four classics by Nobuo Nakagawa (1905-1984), who is sometimes called the father of J-Horror. Nakagawa is mostly known for his stylish and atmospheric horror-folk tale stories made in the 1950s and 60s. Another highlight of the theme program is benshi Kataoka Ichiro, who will perform the traditional art of live narration for a special selection of Short Films.
Exhibitions, events & culinary workshops
Before and after the Film screenings, festival visitors can also visit two art-exhibitions, various ‘interventions’ (a series of short performances), a pop-up market for Japanese products, the legendary CAMERA JAPAN Film brunch or join the Kids’ Day. Additionally, various culinary events, ranging from a matcha workshop to a sake tasting are organised as well.
About CAMERA JAPAN
CAMERA JAPAN is organised by a group of enthusiastic volunteers and is supported by Rotterdam Festivals, the Dutch Film Fund, the Isaac Alfred Ailion Foundation, Japan Foundation, FedEx and Stichting Elise Mathilde Fonds. This festival is also part of the agenda of Rotterdam Festivals.
Source: CAMERA JAPAN
