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At the Far East Film Festival (Feff) in Udine, Italy, Mitsuhiro Mihara’s Takano Tofu clinched the Golden Mulberry prize, the top honor at the festival’s audience awards.

Family drama Takano Tofu follows a father and daughter as they run a tofu shop in a small town, and stars Tatsuya Fuji and Kumiko Aso. The title also won the Purple Mulberry Award, chosen by users of Italian film fan platform MYmovies.

Feff hosted a parallel online component through the MYmovies One platform, where Takano Tofu came in as the second most-streamed film after Korean film Alienoid.

Taking second prize at the audience awards was another Japanese film, Confetti, directed by Naoya Futjita. The coming-of-age film follows Yuki (played by Matsufuji Shion), who takes on female roles for his father’s traveling theater troupe. Hong Kong film Time Still Turns the Pages by Nick Cheuk came in third.

The White...

Mitsuhiro Mihara’s Takano Tofu won two awards including the top Golden Mulberry prize at the closing of Far East Film Festival (Feff) in Udine, Italy, where the honours were dominated by titles from Japan and South Korea.

The family drama centres on a father and daughter who run a tofu store, and stars Tatsuya Fuji and Kumiko Aso. It received its European premiere at Feff, where director Mihara accepted the award, decided by audience votes, on Thursday (May 2).

The film also won the Purple Mulberry Award, selected users of Italian film fan platform MYmovies. The online component of Feff,...

“Takano Tofu” claimed double honors on the closing night of the Far East Film Festival in Udine, Italy. It won the Golden Mulberry audience award and the MyMovies Purple Mulberry award.

Directed by Mihara Mitsuhiro, “Takano Tofu” is a melodrama about an elderly tofu-making craftsman, who is stuck in his ways but is also experimental and who is kindly, but whose stubbornness brings suffering on those around him. Udine’s Japan selector, Mark Schilling compared the work to that of master director Ozu Yasujiro.

The prizes were handed out in the early hours of Friday after a marathon day of celebratory activity that started with Chinese director Zhang Yimou on hand for a screening of his “Raise the Red Lantern,” continued with a generous-spirited masterclass and in the evening continued with the handover of Zhang’s lifetime achievement award. Two more films – Zhang’s “To Live” and the premiere of...

Director Mitsuhiro Mihara has outlined a few characters around the idea of the grumpy, ageing artisan, last bastion of some sort of art or tradition that is destined to vanish in the modern world and Tatsuya Fuji seems to be his default choice to flesh out those characters. He was an old-school family photographer in “Photo Album of the Village” (2004), a skilled Chinese chef in “Flavor of Happiness” (2008) and he is a committed tofu maker in his latest effort, “Takanu Tofu”.

Takano Tofu is screening at UdineFar East Film Festival 2024

Tatsuo Takano (Tatsuya Fuji) and his daughter Haru (Kumiko Aso) run a small artisanal tofu production with attached shop, in their town of Onomichi, in the Hiroshima Prefecture. To tell the truth, after many years of working together, Takano is still the craftsman and Haru the helper; the art of making his wonderful and unique tofu is a jealously kept...

Today, Asian Pop-Up Cinema announced the full lineup of films and programs included in its 18th edition, running March 20 – April 21, 2024. Each week throughout the festival is dedicated to works from a different region, with films screened in person on weekends at AMC Newcity 14 (1500 N. Clybourn Ave.) and available via streaming on weekdays. This year’s festival also features an inaugural partnership with Northwestern University, Asian Pop-Up Cinema at the Block Museum, featuring special screenings and guest lecturers. Screening schedules and tickets are available now at www.asianpopupcinema.org.

The 18th season of Asian Pop-Up Cinema opens on March 20, 2024, with the Chicago Premiere of Charles-Olivier Michaud’s Ru, the story of a young Vietnamese girl adapting to life in Quebec and featuring an in-person appearance from lead actor Jean Bui. Closing Night features the Midwest Premiere of We Are Family, following the founder of a rent-a-family business navigating personal and professional conflicts,...