Nakamura, Yukisada and a spotlight on Japanese music videos coming to L.A. Film Festival

by Chris MaGee

With Cannes on the horizon later this month and the weather warming up across North America film fests just seem to be in the air. The New York Asian Film Festival is tying up their final line-up, Montreal's Fantasia Film Festival is just starting to make some noises about theirs, and Torontonians are awaiting news of what films will be screened at Toronto After Dark and of course the 2nd year of the Shinsedai Cinema Festival. South of the border the folks at the Los Angeles Film Festival have just announced their full line-up films and with over 200 of them being screened from 40 different countries you know that some have to be from Japan. Of course there are and it turns out that they're pretty good ones too.

The Los Angeles Film Festival will be hosting the North American premieres of two major Japanese films next month. First up is Isao Yukisada's "Parade". As we'd previosuly reported, "Parade" is an adaptation of the Shuichi Yoshida novel of the same name which tells the story of a group of four 20-somethings living together in a cramped 2LDK apartment in Tokyo and how their lives change after a string of disturbing crimes takes place in their neighbourhood. the film stars "Battle Royale" star Tatsuya Fujiwara and comes from Yukisada, the man who brought us the pan-Asian blockbuster "Crying Out Love at the Center of the World".

Next is one of my very favorite films of 2010 so far - Yoshihiro Nakamura's "Golden Slumber" (read my full review here). Following in the grand tradition of such films as "North By Northwest" and "The Fugitive" Masato Sakai stars as a man trying to prove he is innocent of a horrendous crime, in this case being framed for the assassination of the Japanese Prime Minister.

On top of these two premieres the Los Angeles Film Festival have put together a special program titled "Big in Japan: A Survey of Japanese Music Videos", which pretty much sums it up. Audiences will get to see music videos by such acts as Cornelius, Rip Slyme, Sour, and Ringo Shiina directed by such filmmakers as Yuichi Kodama, Shota Sakamoto and Koichiro Tsujikawa. Check out Yuichi Kodama's video for Cornelius' "Tone Twilight Zone" below.

The Los Angeles Film Festival, presented by the L.A. Times, will run from June 17th to June 27th. For ticket details and schedule check out its official website here. Thanks to Twitch for pointing the way to this story.