Tokyo Film Festival Sets Dates for 2021 Edition

The International Olympics Committee has made a big announcement regarding the upcoming 2021 Summer Olympics.

Japanese Breakfast made her late-night TV debut on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon last night (March 15) – you can watch it below.The first of two performances saw Michelle Zauner deliver a one-take performance of her new single ‘Be Sweet’, featuring some familiar extraterrestrial faces that appear in the song’s video.She also shared an online performance of her track ‘Jimmy Fallon Big!’ from her 2017 album ‘Soft Sounds From Another Planet’.Originally written after a bandmate from her old

Japanese Breakfast was the musical guest on Monday night's episode of The Tonight Show. This gave Michelle Zauner the opportunity to perform new song "Be Sweet" as well as revive "Jimmy Fallon Big!" a song from her 2017 album Soft Sounds From Another Planet that references the show's host.

subtitled trailer for “Demon Slayer – The Movie” above.Also Read: 'Avatar' Overtakes 'Avengers: Endgame' as Highest Grossing Movie Ever After China Re-ReleaseAniplex of America and Funimation are handling the North American distribution plans.“Demon Slayer – Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train” is directed by Haruo Sotozaki and features an original story by Koyoharu Gotoge with a screenplay and animation production by studio ufotable.

Mark Schilling Japan CorrespondentThe pandemic has led to changes in production that could well be permanent, but its effect on content going forward is less clear.

Comcast, whose NBCUniversal unit controls U.S. broadcast rights to the Olympics through 2032, has extended its commitment to the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Moses McCormick was a popular YouTuber whose viral videos documented his conversations with people in languages including Mandarin, Arabic, and Japanese.McCormick’s journey as a language learner began when he was 18 and decided to study Chinese because he loved kung fu movies. He went on to teach himself a wide variety of languages, and his YouTube videos showed him conversing comfortably in at least 20 languages.

The Tokyo International Film Festival unveiled a range of operational changes Monday, including the appointment of a new programming director and a move of locations within the Japanese capital. The shakeup reflects the continued influence of former Japanese diplomat Hiroyasu Ando, who was appointed festival chairman in 2019 and has vowed to boost the festival's global relevancy.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefJust weeks after Japan’s Olympic Games chief was forced to resign over his sexist comments, the Tokyo International Film Festival has become the first major festival in Asia to sign a gender parity pledge. The move was announced on Monday as part of a quartet of major shakeup development moves.The festival said that it will relocate to a new district in Tokyo for the first time in 16 years and rethink its competition section.

Mark Schilling Japan CorrespondentFollowing his win of the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at the recently concluded Berlin Film Festival for “Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy,” 42-year-old Hamaguchi Ryusuke suddenly finds himself catapulted to the directorial front ranks in his native Japan.It’s not that he’s exactly obscure there: Hamaguchi’s 2018 romantic drama “Asako I & II” was selected for the Cannes competition while his 2015 breakthrough, the five-hour-plus drama “Happy Hour,” won a group best

Mark Schilling Japan CorrespondentThe Japanese film industry has been relatively quick to recover from the pandemic, despite the slow rollout of vaccinations in Japan. So industry leaders are bringing lineups to FilMart packed with titles that will hopefully play to packed theaters at home in the coming months.One is Gaga Corporation, which is bringing “Junk Head,” a first feature by stop-motion animator Takahide Hori that has won kudos around the international festival circuit.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefJapanese comedy-drama “Ito” (aka “Itomichi”) was named as the Grand Prix winner of the 16th edition of the Osaka Asian Film Festival. It also claimed the audience award.The festival ran March 5-14.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief“Sexual Drive,” a Japanese film about desire which premiered at January’s Rotterdam film festival, will be released in North America, following a licensing deal between sales agent Fortissimo Films and local distributor Film Movement. The deal was agreed following the recent European Film Market.Film Movement plans to show “Sexual Drive” at other festivals and also release it theatrically this year.

Scoring another record with a local title in Japan, IMAX has had its best opening day ever for a film there with Shin Evangelion. Overall, the movie, which is the fourth and final installment in the Rebuild Of Evangelion series, grossed nearly 828M yen ($7.6M). Of that, the IMAX portion was $740K.

Editor’s Note: Brian Tee has become a notable face of Asian Hollywood, providing representation to a community that has been wildly been underrepresented and, on more than one occasion, misrepresented. He has appeared in big banner films such as The Wolverine, Jurassic World, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, and The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentThe Berlin Film Festival’s European Film Market had a successful 2021 online edition with the participation of 12,000 attendees from 131 countries. The industry event, which took place March 1-5, gathered 504 exhibitors — 215 of which were newcomers at EFM — from 60 countries.

Richard Kuipers The mega-successful Chinese franchise about a mismatched detective duo tackling baffling crimes in foreign destinations continues with a wildly uneven caper set in Tokyo.

EXCLUSIVE: Japanese major Gaga will launch sales on 3D animated feature Ryoma! The Prince Of Tennis at the upcoming Filmart in Hong Kong (March 15-18).

Japanese writer-director Ryusuke Hamaguchi won wide acclaim and festival prizes with his 2015 breakthrough feature, the bittersweet ensemble drama Happy Hour. But the nuanced, novelistic eye behind that delicately observed five-hour epic seemed to desert Hamaguchi on his 2018 anti-romance Asako I & II, which premiered to lukewarm reviews in Cannes.

EXCLUSIVE: New Line is scratching at a start date on Hello Kitty. The studio, which set the rights to make a film based on the global brand in 2019, has set Jennifer Coyle and Leo Matsuda to direct what will be an animated/live-action hybrid effort.