The rich and varied cinema of contemporary Japanese filmmakers will be brought to Ireland during the Japanese Film Festival, which will take place in Cineworld Dublin on 15th and 16th November before travelling on to the Kino in Cork for the 22nd and 23rd before reaching its final destination of Storm Cinema in Limerick on the 26th and 27th. Co-organised by the Embassy of Japan, access>CINEMA, and the Ireland Japan Association (IJA) it is hoped that the festival will grow to become a regular fixture on the Irish cinematic calendar. There will be four films showing at the festival; two animated and two live action films, ranging from the whimsical to the positively head-spinning. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is a bittersweet animate d tale about a schoolgirl called Makoto who discovers that she has the ability to travel through time. The other animated feature, Mind Game, is a new wave surreal tale of love, yakuza gangsters and, bizarrely, life inside the belly of a whale. Also showing will be Go, an award-winning story of a Korean living in Japan who suffers through an identity crisis. The final film showing is Hotel Hibiscus is a sunny film filled with song, dance, folklore and, er, pagan rituals. No admittance will be charged for any of the screenings in all three venues; tickets can be collected from a Japanese Film Festival stand at the individual venues three hours prior to each screening. Tickets cannot be booked in advance.
