Japanese Film Festival comes to SA

"Summer Days with Coo"

The festival will commence on 8 October 2011 at Cinema Nouveau at the Brooklyn Mall in Pretoria and will run for two days after which it will go to Cinema Nouveau at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town on 15 and 16 October. The festival will end at Cinema Nouveau in Johannesburg in Rosebank on 22 and 23 October.

The film festivals are aimed at promoting understanding of various aspects of Japan among South Africans. All the films are in Japanese with English subtitles. Free tickets will be available at the box office one hour before screening.

"Summer Days' with Coo" is a film telling the story of Koichi Uehara who is a fourth grade student living in a suburb of Tokyo. He draws the popular attention of the whole city upon being discovered and is then confronted with his past, which forces him to take action and make an ultimate decision. "Summer Days with Coo" received top honours as the best animation movie in the 31st Japan Academy Awards in 2008.

"Castle Under Fiery Skies" is set in 1575 in feudal Japan, in an attempt to unite the country and as a symbol of peace, Lord Nobunaga orders a temple carpenter Mataemon to build him a five-story castle in three short years. The castle is to be named Azuchi Castle and will be built near water but high enough to be seen from the capital city of Kyoto. The construction work begins but persistent obstacles undermine the path to the castle's completion which can only be overcome through wisdom and cooperation.

Comedy and suspense a good combination

"Climbers High" is based on the best-selling novel by Hideo Yokoyama, which was inspired by the actual events of Japan Airlines Flight 123 which lost control and hit Mount Takamagahara on 12 August 1985 in Japan's Gunma Prefecture with over five hundred passengers on board making it the deadliest single-plane aviation accident in history. Yuuki Kazumasa (Shinichi Tsutsumi) is a reporter from the North Kanto Times who is assigned to cover the accident.

"Happy Flight" is a comedy and suspense take turns in this crowd-pleasing film by director Shinobu Yaguchi. Flight 1980 is preparing to take off from Tokyo to Hawaii and captain Harada is a tough, by-the-book pilot who is training young co-pilot Suzuki who is eager to move up to full pilot's status. The flight is also carrying a new stewardess, Saito, who is nervous about working under a taskmaster who also intimidates the more experienced Mari. Meanwhile at the airport, Kimura deals with lost luggage and disgruntled passengers, and the head of the ground crew and his chief weather adviser strive to get the flight off the ground safely and on time. Can Flight 1980 land safely before the storm hits the airport?

"Tokyo Tower" tells the story of a wife leaving her alcoholic husband. Eiko takes their son Masaya back to her home town in a Kyushu rural mining community. She toils to support him through many years of schooling even after he wastes his time while studying art in a Tokyo university. After graduation he struggles to find work and finally pulls his life together for his mother's sake, ultimately ending up with multiple jobs as an illustrator and even as the host of a sexually-themed talk show on radio.