30th Image Forum Festival 2016

The cherry blossoms are in full bloom in Tokyo, which means the latest edition of the Image Forum Festival is fast approaching. It begins April 29^th at its home at the Image Forum Theatre in Shibuya and runs until May 6^th. The festival will then tour the country until mid-July so check out their website for locations near you if you live in Japan.

As usual, the programme features a diverse range of the weird and the wonderful from far and wide. Some of the highlights of this year include The Guillaume Nicloux’s comedy-drama The Kidnapping of Michel Houellebecq (L'enlèvement de Michel Houellebecq / ミシェル・ウエルベック誘拐事件, 2014), starring the notorious author himself, and Andreas Horvath’s acclaimed documentary Helmut Berger, Actor (俳優、ヘルムート・バーガー, 2015) about the Austrian actor who worked so closely with his partner Luchino Visconti in the 60s and 70s.

In terms of animation, there is a wide selection of Japanese artists’ works from the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s on offer. There are also programmes highlighting the animation of other Southeast Asian countries under the umbrella “Anime-Asean” including selections of animated shorts from Singapore and Indonesia. In my opinion, the “must-see” programme is “Japan Tomorrow” (ジャパン・トゥモロウ) which showcases these recent avant-garde animation and experimental works by Japanese directors: