Tokyo Film Fest Announces Lineup, Visits From Robert De Niro, Tom Hanks

TOKYO – The lineup for the Tokyo International Film Festival, including the 15 films in the main competition section, was announced at a news conference Thursday in the Roppongi Hills complex that serves as the event’s main venue.

The 15 titles, six of which will be world premieres, were selected from 1,463 entries from 93 countries, with 453 submissions from Asia and more than 500 from Europe.

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Competing for the Sakura Grand Prix and $50,000 will be The Double, a U.K. production based on Dostoevsky‘s 1846 novella about a doppelganger starring Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network) and Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland) and directed by Richard Ayoade. Joining it will be Red Family, a tale of a family with a secret mission from debut Korean director Lee Ju-hyoung and writer-producer Kim Ki-duk. The U.S. will be represented by Drinking Buddies, a romantic comedy about two co-workers from director John Swanberg.

Special screenings at the festival include the Steven Soderbergh-directed Liberace biopic Beyond the Candelabra, Sofia Coppola‘s The Bling Ring and Robert De Niro-starrer The Family, directed by Luc Besson. Coppola, along her father Francis Ford Coppola, and De Niro will be visiting Tokyo for the festival. 

The festival also will feature demonstration screenings of both the 4K and 8K HD formats, with the cooperation of festival-sponsors Sony and Cannon for 4K, and public broadcaster NHK for the newer Super Hi-Vision 8K system.

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Selected titles from the competition and other sections will be screened at the TIFFCOM market venue in Odaiba, allowing buyers to watch films without traveling to the main venue.

TIFFCOM has combined the music and contents markets that were held alongside it last year, boosting the number of booths by about 30 percent.

“Exhibitor booths sold out in record time this year, a month faster than previously,” TIFFCOM director Mika Morishita told The Hollywood Reporter.

With a government program to promote Japanese content overseas launched in January, local companies can claim for reimbursement up to half the costs of exhibiting, and some of the major domestic TV networks are reportedly planning lavish booths for this year’s market.   

TIFF will open Oct. 17 with Captain Phillips, starring Tom Hanks, who will attend the screening. It’s based on the true story of the hijacking of a cargo ship by Somali pirates. The Kiyosu Conference, a historical comedy by writer-director Koki Mitani, will bring proceedings to a close Oct. 25.                

Full list of films in competition:

Au revoir l’ été                 2013       Japan-U.S.  Koji Fukada

Barber’s Tales                 2013       The Philippines  Jun Robles Lana

Bending the Rules           2013       Iran  Behnam Behzadi

Blind Dates                     2013       Georgia  Levan Koguashvili

Disregarded People        2012       Japan   Hideo Sakaki

The Double                     2013       U.K.   Richard Ayoade

Drinking Buddies             2012       U.S.  Joe Swanberg

The Empty Hours             2013       Mexico-France-Spain  Aarón Fernández

Love is the Perfect Crime    2013      France-Switzerland  Arnaud Larrieu and Jean-Marie Larrieu

Of Horses and Men         2013       Iceland  Benedikt Erlingsson

Red Family                      2013         Korea  Lee Ju-hyoung

Singing Women               2013       Turkey-Germany-France  Reha Erdem

Those Happy Years         2013       Italy-France  Daniele Luchetti

To Live and Die in Ordos 2013      China  Ning Ying

We Are the Best!             2013       Sweden  Lukas Moodysson

 

Twitter: @GavinJBlair