Arizona Japanese Film Festival
Tentative Screening Schedule
Arizona Japanese Film Festival 2024 is open to films made after 2011.
All films are in English with Japanese or Japanese and English subtitles.
Instagram@jffarizona
Facebook Page: Japanese Film Festival Arizona, https://www.facebook.com/jffarizona
November 3rd, 2023 program
Friday
Opening Intro:
10:55 ～11:00
Anime "POP IN Q"
ポッピンQ
Official Site: http://www.toei-anim.co.jp/sp/popin-q
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WG0rypdcTPg&authuser=0
Young girls stand up to face a global crisis in this fantasy anime commemorating the 60th anniversary of Toei Animation. Miyahara Naoki, who has worked on the "Pretty Cure" series among others, directs.
Third year middle-schooler, Isumi (voice: Seto Asami) finds a "fragment of time" at the ocean. Upon picking it up, she sees an unknown world stretching out before her and encounters a strange life-form calling itself a Pokon. The Pokon tells her the world's time is in danger of breaking down, and so with four other girls, attempts to circumvent the crisis.
11:00 - 12:35
GENRE: Anime, kids, teens, full length film
Short Film Collections
Empty
裏表紙
Centering on the relationships between the people who work at a bookbinding factory, it portrays the human society as a whole, with people who manage to get by no matter how hard they try.
12:45 - 1:15
GENRE: Drama short film (29:55) Directed by Bunta Kawamoto)
Purple Heart for Effect
PURPLE HEART FOR EFFECT is a short set in 1985 about a retired Japanese American war veteran who tells his grandson about his hardships and the part he played in WWII.
A CineAsian Films selection, a curation site showcasing some of the best stories by and about Asians.
1:20 - 1:23
GENRE: Anime short film (3 min) by Bradford Uyeda **local
Paper Prayers
紙の祈り
A short documentary about the origin of paper crane-folding, a practice deeply woven into Japanese peace culture following the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
1:25 - 1:40
GENRE: Documentary film ( 12 mints) by Carolyn Robertson **local
Wondering Memories
Shiori Sato has been searching for her son Taka, who mysteriously disappeared three years prior. One day, on the anniversary of Taka's fourth birthday. Shiori meets an "information pawnbroker" who can exchange "wanted information" for "memories of commensurate value." Shiori is torn to give up her memories for information on Taka's whereabouts. However, Shiori's father, Hideki, who is worried she is still bound by the past, stops her.
1:50 - 2:15
GENRE: Drama (25:00) by Yuta Noguchi
Full length film screening
Somedays
サムデイズ
Story:
“I will come for you, I promise."
Kaori Matsudaira (Mau Nishio), a young daughter, and Hayato Matsudaira (Yuhi from Boys and Men), her little brother, are placed in an orphanage.
The siblings believed their mother's words and waited for her, but she never came.
2:30 - 4:00
GENRE: Drama, Romance, Teens, full length film (01:26:31) ** feature film
November 4th
Saturday
Opening Intro
10:55 ～11:00
Tatara
たたら
A family living in Shimane, a young man born and raised in America, and his father. When each heart intersects, a certain changes occurs.
A human story with the themes of family love and Japan’s proud culture, “TATARA”.
11:00 - 11:40
Medium length (40:00) ** feature film
Jungle Emperor Leo
ジャングル大帝レオ
Earth, sometime in the 21st century. Because of non-stop environmental destruction, the United Nations commissions a private company, "Eternal Earth," to create an artificial jungle, to be a nature preserve and to protect animals. All wild animals are forced to live in it.
The animals that live in this "neo-jungle" have an easy life. Leo, son of Panja, is born in this artificial world. Because of the unrealistic nature of the neo-jungle, Leo lives his life like he hasn't a care in the world. But Leo is ridiculed by the other animals; they call him a coward—he is not like his father, the great Jungle Emperor, but Leo vows that some day he will be.
12:00 - 1:40
Anime, Drama, full length, Age group 4 - 12, family by Tezuka Production, CO. LTD** feature film
Film makers talk & music the Pledge to Megumi
2:15 -
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Mr. Mimata
2:30 - 4:00
A human drama centered around Megumi Yokota, who was abducted by North Korean agents at the age of 13, and depicts the suffering of the abductee and the struggles of her family working to recapture her. Megumi, who is living in North Korea, loses her emotional balance when she learns that she cannot return home, while her family in Japan scrambles to retrieve their daughter.
めぐみへの誓い
GENRE: PG 13, Drama, full length film (90:00) ** feature film