More titles announced for Nippon Connection '10!

by Chris MaGee

My flight is book and so is my accomodation, and I've officially been itching to head to Frankfurt for Nippon Connection 2010 since the first round of films was announced at the beginning of this month. Now that a new batch of titles have been announced for the 10th anniversary of one of, if not the best, Japanese film festival outside of Japan I may have to resort to sedatives to get me through the next month and a half.

Now added to such films as Toshiaki Toyoda's "Blood of Rebirth", Koji Yakusho's "Toad's Oil", and Isshin Inudo's "Zero Focus" are Yu Irie's indie success story "8000 Miles (Saitma's Rapper)", Tetsuaki Matsue's one-shot music film "Live Tape", Momoko Ando's "Kakera (A Piece of Your Life)" newly acquired by Third Window Films, underground gore director Shozin Fukui's "S-94" (above), Eiichiro Hasumi's crowd-pleasing "Oppai Volleyball", "One Million Yen Girl" by the insanely talented Yuki Tanada, Toya Sato's manga adaptation "Kaiji", Nobua Mizuta's "Maiko haaaan!!!" follow-up "No More Cry!!!", Yoshifumi Tsubota's manga biopic "Miyoko", and Keralino Sandorovich's comedy "Crime or Punishment?!?".

I had a list of must-see-films after the first list of titles were announced, but now... Ah hell, let's just say that from between April 14th to April 19th I am going to be a very, very busy boy running from one screening to the next.

The Nippon Connection website hasn't been updated (yet) for this year's fest, but keep checking back there and here for more details on what to expect in Frankfurt this April.