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The official YouTube channel for singer-songwriter imase is now streaming a music video for his 21st digital single song "Egoist," which is featured as the ending theme for the ongoing second cour of the TV anime Trillion Game . imase "Egoist" Music Video The music video was directed by Udo, an up-and-coming video director who also previously directed the music video for "Nagisa" and "Metro City" . The theme of the video is "to bring out imase's expressions of joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure, which no one has seen before yet." "The theme of this video is 'Joy, Anger, Sorrow, and Pleasure in Life," said Udo. "This project was conceived in the aim of bringing out more of imase that no one has seen yet. Please pay attention to the changes in imase's facial expressions as he goes through a life of ups and downs. He gave it his all on the...

Kang Bo’s Kingdom Of The Insomniacs has picked up the top Busan Award at the Asian Project Market (Apm) in South Korea.

The 27th edition of the Apm wrapped on Tuesday evening (October 8) after four days, taking place at the Asian Contents & Film Market (Acfm) during the Busan International Film Festival (Biff). A total of 30 feature film projects from across Asia met with potential finance, co-production partners and international distributors.

Scoll down for full list of winners

Chinese fantasy drama Kingdom Of The Insomniacs marks Kang Bo’s second narrative feature and follows mushroom farmers plagued with insomnia and an aging disease.

Busan International Film Festival (Biff) has revealed 30 titles chosen for the 2024 Asian Project Market (Apm), including upcoming features by award-winners Kirsten Tan, Iqbal H. Chowdhury, Woo Ming Jin and Daishi Matsunaga.

The investment and co-production market, which runs as part of Biff’s Asian Contents and Film Market (Acfm), is set to take place from October 5-8 in Busan, South Korea.

Scroll down for full list of titles

This year’s Apm selection features an expanded variety of genres, including crime thrillers, horror, queer cinema, and animated films, alongside the more traditional selections of drama, comedy and romance. Organisers said...

Strand Releasing has acquired North American rights from sales company Films Boutique to tender coming-of-age drama “Young Hearts” by Belgian newcomer Anthony Schatteman, which recently launched from the Berlin Film Festival.

Schatteman’s standout debut follows a 13-year-old boy named Elias, who feels drawn to his new neighbor, Alexander, and must overcome his conflicted feelings about being attracted to another boy. “Young Hearts” won a special mention in the Generation Kplus section of the Berlinale in February and has now been selected by Cannes Écran Junior, the Cannes Film Festival sidebar section showcasing films for all audiences that have a specific cultural and educational value for younger viewers.

The film will soon have its North American premiere at the Seattle International Film Festival in May.

“Casting directors take note: Lou Goossens [who plays Elias] in this first feature film role is an actor to watch out for,” wrote Variety critic Catherine Bray in her “Young Hearts” review,...

Matsunaga Daishi’s Egoist is a love duet full of intimate gestures. “I hated my hometown so much, I fled it, at 18, for Tokyo,” confesses Kosuke (Suzuki Ryohei), in voiceover. “For me, clothes are armor.” Though the gay fashion magazine editor, who lost his mother at age 14, seems much more at home in the more socially liberal Tokyo, he still hides behind his sharp style and his money. That is, until he meets Ryuta (Miyazawa Hio), a fitness trainer to whom he feels an immediate bond. And through these two young men from decidedly different backgrounds, Matsunaga’s film considers how class, capitalism, and core wounds collide, infect, and also inspire the heart’s most tender desires.

It isn’t long after Kosuke starts training with Ryuta that the two become romantically linked. Theirs is a carnal connection that deepens and complicates as they learn more about each other. In some ways,...

Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist was named best film at the Asian Film Awards in Hong Kong on Sunday evening (March 10).

The Japanese drama, which premiered in competition at Venice where it won five awards including the grand jury prize, also picked up best original music for composer Eiko Ishibashi.

Scroll down for full list of winners

While Hamaguchi was not at the ceremony, held in the Grand Theatre of the Xiqu Centre in Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District, the top prize was accepted in-person by Ishibashi, cinematographer Yoshio Kitagawa and co-editor Azusa Yamzaki – presented by...

Busan Names Asian Contents & Film Market Director

Busan’s Asian Contents and Film Market (Acfm) has named experienced programmer and indie arthouse producer Ellen Y.D. Kim has its new Director. She has been officially approved at the Busan International Film Festival (Biff)’s general assembly and will commence a four-year term this Friday (March 8). She was previously Program Director of the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival. Kim is well known to Acfm, having played a key role in establishing the event in the 2006s, and co-produced arthouse films such as Cry Woman in 2002 and Sewing Sisters 18 years later. She also held several key roles at Acfm’s parent, the Biff, which has now passed this year’s business plan and budget at the general assembly, as it bids to return to normalcy after a string of resignations last year. Biff has also approved of 18 board members and an auditor,...

The 66th edition of the Blue Ribbon Awards, presented by the Association of Tokyo Film Journalists, has announced its winners on January 24, 2024. The nominees are selected from movies released in 2023. The trifecta wins for “Godzilla Minus One” come as no surprise, sweeping the Best Film, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress categories. Yuya Ishii picks up the Best Director award for both his movies “The Moon” and “Masked Hearts”.

Best Film

Masked Hearts

Ichiko

Egoist

Monster

The Dry Spell

Godzilla Minus One

Mom, Is That You?!

(Ab)normal Desire

The Moon

One Last Bloom

Perfect Days

Bad Lands

September 1923

Do Unto Others

As Long as We Both Shall Live

Best Director

Yuya Ishii – The Moon, Masked Hearts

Hirokazu Koreeda – Monster

Daishi Matsunaga – Egoist

Takashi Yamazaki – Godzilla Minus One

Yoji Yamada – Mom, Is That You?!

Best Actor

Goro Inagaki – (Ab)normal Desire

Ryunosuke Kamiki – Godzilla Minus One, We're Broke, My Lord!

The love of self and the love of others are deeply intertwined, according to everyone from ancient philosophers to “Drag Race” host Ru Paul. We must be anchored in a solid space of self-love in order to let someone else into our lives. On its surface, this is the key tenet of Daishi Matsunaga’s “Egoist” (ergo its title). But that sentiment serves instead to highlight how this maudlin Japanese drama about a gay man in his 30s coping with love and loss, rarely moves beyond the readymade platitudes that litter its well-meaning narrative.

Based on the late Makoto Takayama’s autobiographical novel of the same name, “Egoist” follows Saitô Kôsuke (Ryohei Suzuki), a magazine editor whose picture-perfect life includes an immaculately designed condo, a quick-paced job surrounded by fashion and photography, a closet full of beautiful designer clothes and a coterie of gay male friends with whom he handily gets along.

The Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme, the U.K.’s largest festival of Japanese cinema, will take to the road in February and March. Its 2024 selection is the event’s largest ever with much of it attuned to the theme of memories, times and reflections.

“The JFTFP24 delves into Japanese cinema to explore how memories are employed in the cinematic voices of Japanese filmmakers, from films where memories are a focal point to works where they play a subliminal role in driving or affecting people’s minds and behavior,” said organizers.

The festival will run Feb. 2 – Mar. 31 and take in 30 U.K. cities including Edinburgh, Manchester, Oxford, Orkney, Exeter and York.

Program highlights include: the U.K. premiere of “Shadow of Fire,” directed by festival favorite Shinya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo: The Iron Man); a new entry in Nikkatsu’s Roman Porno genre, “Hand”; visually stunning anime “Lonely Castle in the Mirror,...

The progress of LGBT films has been significant during the latest years, with a number of titles moving beyond the category, essentially being great titles overall, with titles like “Dear Ex” and “Egoist” being the first that come to mind. Indonesian “Sara” follows in the footsteps of these titles, at least contextually.

Sara screened at Busan International Film Festival

35-year- old Sara, a transgender woman, has to return to her remote hometown to attend her father’s funeral. However, she soon realizes that the funeral is not the only issue she will have to face, since the village has turned intensely religious and her mother is suffering from dementia and treats her like a complete stranger. Instead of fighting, however, Sara decides to adapt, with the help of her friend, Ayu, even going as far as creating new memories for her mother by play-acting as her late father, the person...

Directors include Huang Hsin-yao, Tom Lin Shu-yu, Lam Sum, Ng Ka-leung and Daishi Matsunaga.

Taiwan’s Golden Horse Film Project Promotion (Fpp) has revealed a diverse selection of 46 films for its 2023 project market, including directors Huang Hsin-yao, Tom Lin Shu-yu and Hsu Chih-yen from Taiwan, Lam Sum and Ng Ka-leung from Hong Kong and Daishi Matsunaga from Japan

The market is scheduled to take place from November 20-22 during the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival with a the total prize pool of nearly $250,000 (Nt$8m), including a grand prize worth $32,000 (Nt$1m). All projects in the selection are eligible to...

Egoist will go their separate ways in October, giving fans a final opportunity to see them in October.

Per Comics Natalie, Egoist's final appearances will be on September 23's Egoist Live 2023 - Fleeting Ruby "The Crescendo" 0923 at Grand Cube Osaka, Japan, and again for Resonant Indigo "Echoes of Everlasting" 1009 at Pacifico Yokohama in Kanagawa. The official announcement was made by the lead vocalist, chelly (stylized), in an impassioned statement to her fans worldwide. She thanked her "dear fans who have always supported her" and intimated that this was an amicable split via her gratitude to her management agency, Incs Toenter.

Related: Beloved Anime Opening & Ending Songs You Didn’t Know Were Sung by the Main Characters

chelly and ryo's iconic partnership as Egoist comes to an end, allowing chelly to focus on her up-and-coming solo career. Formed in unique circumstances as a fictional band in the anime Guilty Crown...

The 20th edition of Skip City International D-Cinema Festival had been physically held from July 15 to July 23 (and virtually from July 22 to July 26), and wrapped at the Closing Ceremony, Sunday July 23. Jury and Audience award winners were announced at the Ceremony.

For the International Compeition, an Asian Premiere film, When the Seedlings Grow (Syria), directed by Rêger Azad Kaya, received the Grand Prize. I Woke Up with a Dream (Argentina, Uruguay), directed by Pablo Solarz, won the Best Director and Six Weeks (Hungary), directed by Noémi Veronika Szakonyi received the Special Jury Prize. This year's jury members were Masao Teshima, President of the Jury and a renowned producer from Asmik Ace, Naomi Akashi, the producer of Egoist (Dir. Daishi Matsunaga) and Patrice Nezan, a French producer, who produced the festival's 2019 winner The Tower (Dir. Mats Grorud). In addition, Midwives (France), directed by Léa Fehner, was chosen for the Audience Award.

The Japanese actor collected the Screen International Rising Star award at the New York Asian Film Festival.

Japanese actor Ryohei Suzuki has praised the “inspiring” members of SAG-AFTRA who are on strike to secure a fairer split of profits from streaming giants and better working conditions.

Accepting Screen International’s Rising Star Asia Award at the New York Asian Film Festival (Nyaff), the star of Egoist and upcoming Netflix feature City Hunter said: “It is such an inspiring time for us Asian actors when American actors are fighting so hard for their rights right now so I want to show...

Nyaff unveils first wave of features from China, Hong Kong, Japan and beyond.

The New York Asian Film Festival (Nyaff) has unveiled the first wave of features for its 22nd edition and announced that Japanese actor Ryohei Suzuki will receive the Screen International Rising Star award.

Nyaff will run from July 14-30 at the city’s Film at Lincoln Center, with a programme of more than 60 titles, and Suzuki will be presented with the award recognising emerging talent from East Asia on July 15.

Suzuki has been acting on screen for more than 15 years, with a string of roles in Japanese...

The spectre of autism can prove to be a slippery slope for filmmakers. Even if it does not necessarily end up on the territory of exploitation, it tends to be the defining characteristic for the characters with it, as we witnessed in films like “Rain Man” and “Forest Gump”. Having that in mind, making a compelling, convincing and believable romance movie with at least one character somewhere on the spectrum seems like a difficult, if not downright impossible task, and the Japanese filmmaker Rika Katsu undertook it for her debut feature “Spring in Between” that we had the chance to see at Nippon Connection.

Spring In Between is screening at Nippon Connection

Katsu opens the film with a parallel montage of a man seemingly playing with blue paint on its hands, but actually painting and a woman running to some kind of an open show, against the backdrop of music...

As the discourse in Japan regarding same-sex marriage is currently on the rise, films about the topic overall are bound to come out in more frequency. One of those films is Daishi Matsunaga's “Egoist”, based on the homonymous, autobiographical novel by Makoto Takayama, which was recently screened in Tokyo International.

“Egoist” is screening at Udine Far East Film Festival

When Kosuke was 14 years old, his mother died. He spent his adolescence in a rural village and suppressed his feelings as a gay male. As the film begins, however, we find him having turned his life completely upside down, working as a fashion magazine editor in Tokyo, looking rather smart in his designer clothes and overall handsomeness, and having a circle of friends that seem both dedicated and a constant source of fun for him. One day, after the suggestion of one of them, Kosuke starts working with Ryuta, a...

The first highlights of the 23rd Nippon Connection Film Festival are set! From June 6 to 11, 2023, Frankfurt am Main in Germany will once again become the capital of Japanese cinema. For six days, you can immerse yourself in art and cinema from Japan at eight venues. There are around 100 exciting short and feature-length films to discover – from the latest blockbusters and anime to independent and documentary films. A varied supporting program with more than 50 workshops, concerts, lectures and exhibitions as well as a wide range of culinary specialties invite you to experience Japan with all your senses. The two festival centers with cinemas, bars and Japanese market stalls are again the Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm and the Produktionshaus Naxos in Frankfurt am Main. The complete program and tickets will be available on NipponConnection.com starting May 12, 2023.

Nippon Rising Star Award Goes To Toko Miura!

The star guest of this year’s festival is Toko Miura,...

Italy’s Far East Film Festival unveiled a power-packed lineup Wednesday for its 25th anniversary edition. The largest cinema event in Europe specializing in popular moviemaking from Asia, Feff will open April 21 with an inspired double bill, He Shuming’s hit Korea-Singapore co-production Ajoomma followed by first-time Taiwanese director Kai Ko’s black comedy Bad Education. And on April 29, the curtain will come down on the festival with the Italy premiere of legendary Chinese director Zhang Yimou’s latest blockbuster, Full River Red. Between those dates, the festival will screen 78 Asian films from 14 countries, including nine world premieres.

The organizers of Feff, founded in 1999 in the picturesque northern Italian city of Udine by festival pioneers Sabrina Baracetti and Thomas Bertacche, say the 2023 selection “aims to showcase the immense complexity of Asia more than ever before.” The lineup indeed presents a compelling snapshot of a wildly diverse content’s commercial cinema in flux.

Udine Far East Film Festival is back with a record line-up to celebrate its 25th edition. 78 films, 14 countries, 9 world premieres – Golden Mulberry for Lifetime Achievement to Baisho Chieko – On the red carpet also Johnnie To, Watanabe Hirobumi and Jang Sun-woo.

If there are 78 films (record number!) and they come from 14 countries, it should certainly be emphasized that the line-up includes 15 women directors and 12 newcomers. In brief, the 2023 selection aims to restore great complexity more than ever of Asia. A selection that combines the recent past with today, seamlessly, among different communities, different expectations and choices of life, languages and dialects, politics, religions, habits, inclinations, beliefs, myths and legends and, last but not least, different gender identities. A selection that tells in real time how the cinematography of East and Southeast Asia have re-emerged from the sad period of the pandemic, not all in the same way, and not all with the same results.

The much-decorated Japanese drama “Drive My Car” was named the best film Sunday at the Asian Film Awards, defeating hot favorite “Decision to Leave.”

Other notable awards went to Japan’s Hirokazu Kore-eda whose “Broker” debuted at Cannes, but which was largely shunned in his home country.

“Decision to Leave,” which started the evening with ten nominations, was nevertheless rewarded with three awards, best screenplay, best production design and best actress for China’s Tang Wei.

While nominations were geographically diverse, the awards on Sunday skewed heavily towards North East Asia –Japan, Korea and Greater China – to the total exclusion of films from India, Indonesia and The Philippines. Snubs included the exclusion of Indonesia’s “Autobiography” and Happy Salma, both of which have been widely lauded on the festival circuit.

The awards ceremony returned to Hong Kong after detours to Macau and Busan and a Covid hiatus in previous years.