The Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) is excited to announce the titles of this year’s Opening and Closing Films. Even with the COVID-19 pandemic continuing, TIFF is committed to screening its complete lineup in Tokyo theaters so that audiences can experience the communal joy of watching films on the big screen.
 
Fragments of the Last Will, starring NINOMIYA Kazunari, will open the 35th TIFF. The film is based on the true story of YAMAMOTO Hatao, a Japanese prisoner of war detained in a post-World War II Siberian gulag. Yamamoto believed that he would be able to reunite with his wife and children in Japan and fought to keep the light of hope alive for his fellow POWs. The festival will kick off on a high note with this deeply moving film.
 
The closing film will be Living, which revives internationally renowned auteur KUROSAWA Akira’s 1952 masterpiece Ikiru in the modern age, with a screenplay by Nobel Prize-winning author ISHIGURO Kazuo. The film has been selected by prestigious film festivals around the world such as Sundance, Venice, San Sebastian, and Toronto, and is considered to be an Oscar contender. It will close TIFF in Japan, the birthplace of the original film.
 

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OPENING FILM
Fragments of the Last Will (2022/JAPAN) – World Premiere

Director: ZEZE Takahisa
Cast: NINOMIYA Kazunari, KITAGAWA Keiko, MATSUZAKA Tori, NAKAJIMA Kento, TERAO Akira, KIRITANI Kenta, YASUDA Ken
Release Date (Japan): December 9, 2022
Distribution (Japan): TOHO CO., LTD.
 
Based on a true story – the love story of a man and his wife who are at the mercy of fate, but wish to be reunited for 11 years. With thoughts of his wife and his fellow POWs, Yamamoto Hatao never gave up hoping that he’d return home despite hopeless circumstances.
 

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CLOSING FILM
Living (2022/UK) – Japanese Premiere

Director: Oliver Hermanus
Cast: Bill Nighy, Aimee Lou Wood, Alex Sharp, Tom Burke
Release Date (Japan): Spring 2023
Distribution (Japan): TOHO CO., LTD.
 
Living is the story of an ordinary man, reduced by years of oppressive office routine to a shadow existence, who at the eleventh hour makes a supreme effort to turn his dull life into something wonderful — into one he can say has been lived to the full.
 

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Comment from ICHIYAMA Shozo, 35th TIFF Programming Director:
Fragments of the Last Will
Fragments of the Last Will exceeds the scale of ordinary Japanese films and I found the story profoundly moving. We are very pleased to be able to open the festival with the world premiere of this film.
 
Living
The masterpiece from Japan’s renowned director Kurosawa Akira has been remade with prestige in the UK, and the emotion of the original has been vividly revived. We are proud that this film will close the festival in the film’s birthplace.