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The Japan Academy Film Prize Association held the 47th edition of its awards ceremony on March 8, 2024. The nominees are selected by the Nippon Academy-Sho Association of industry professionals from the pool of film releases between January 1 and December 31, 2023 which must have screened in Tokyo cinemas.

Following its success at the recent Blue Ribbon Awards and leading with 12 nominations, Toho Studios' and Takashi Yamazaki's kaiju cinema masterpiece “Godzilla Minus One” takes top honours winning Picture of the Year and a slew of technical awards. Sakura Ando cements her place as one of Japan's top actresses securing both awards for Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role (for “Monster”) as well as Supporting Role (for “Godzilla Minus One”).

The full list of winners is described below.

Picture of the Year

Monster

Godzilla Minus One

Mom, Is That You?!

September 1923

Perfect Days

Animation of the Year

Kitaro Tanjo – GeGeGe no...

Stars: Tsubasa Nakagawa, Itsuki Nagasawa, Rina Ikoma, Taro Suruga, Toshiro Yanagiba | Written by Yoichi Narita, Yu Sakudo | Directed by Yoichi Narita

Fantasia Festival has been helping me out this year with it’s range and variety of coming-of-age movies. Follow The Light adds some sci-fi to a terrifically written and original coming-of-age story.

Follow The Light starts off a bit slow but in truth this is a slow paced movie. I’d even use the word calm because that’s how I felt while watching much of the movie. It tackles several issues (more on those later) but in this kind of relaxed way. It’s not an experience I’ve had very often with films but it’s a welcome one.

Shy school kid Akira moves with his dad to the Japanese countryside and a school that is about to be closed for good. After seeing Maki, a mysterious...

The dying out of a number of rural areas in Japan, due to the declining birthrate, the aging population and the intense urbanization that has always characterized the country, has been a significant issue for decades now, as the agricultural sector keeps declining. Yoichi Narita places his story in such an area, also adding a personal experience of his, concerning a green light and crop circle that appeared in his hometown in 1991.

“Follow the Light” is Screening at Fantasia International Film Festival

The location is the fictitious Uguisudani in Akita, whose livelihood is tied to growing rice. Due to the aforementioned issues however, the sole middle school in town will close at the end of the school year, a decision that lays heavily on both students and parents. Akira Nakajima has returned to the area from Tokyo, along with his father, Ryota, after his failed music career led to a hard divorce,...

The Fantasia International Film Festival announces a massive new assortment of feature films for its 25th edition, along with details on scheduled panels, talks, tributes, special events, and our esteemed juries. On top of our impressive virtual slate of films, all geo-locked to Canada, and in addition to our globally accessible streamed events, the upcoming festival will also feature a limited number of in-person screenings in Montreal.

Fantasia begins August 5th with the World Premiere of Quebec zombie feature Brain Freeze— following the August 4th special event screening of James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad in celebration of the festival— and ends on August 25th with newly announced closing film, Takashi Miike’s hotly-anticipated The Great Yokai War – Guardians.

Takashi Miike Closes Out Fantasia 2021 With The Great Yokai War – Guardians

The honour of Closing Film belongs to the great Takashi Miike, a constant yet always surprising presence in the festival’s long history.