Ayako Fujitani

(from Japanese Film Festival)
Lion Standing in the Wind is based on a real story and chronicles the inspirational life of Dr Koichiro Shimada who sets off to Kenya to serve as a medical doctor. In a turn of events, he finds himself stationed in a hospital in Lokichogio in the heart of the Kenyan conflict. Witnessing death and the grim reality of child soldiers rocks him to the core and propels him on a path that he did not expect. He abandons his life in Japan and devotes himself to saving lives in Kenya.Read More »

This triptych of tales set in the titular city of Tokyo suggests an Eastern version of NEW YORK STORIES, but there is a significant difference: in this case, none of the three writer-directors (two French and one Korean) are natives; consequently, their short films emerge less as love letters to the city than as skewed points of view from outsiders looking in on what what they consider to be a strange, exotic land, bordering on a freak show. With their surreal touches, fanciful symbolism, and at least one outright refernce to Japanese kaiju cinema, TOKYO! emerges as a boderline genre effort – not quite a fantasy film but definitely a curious piece of cinefantatique. Unfortunately, the weirdness is not always entertaining – in some cases it is merely boring – but there is enough going on to make this interesting for fans of art house cinema.Read More »