Complete Guide To EIGASAI 2018 | 21st Japanese Film Festival – Bacolod City
EIGASAI 2018 (Japanese Film Festival) in Bacolod City Runs From August 09 to 12, 2018 – Admission is FREE!
Movie buffs in Bacolod City are in for a treat because from August 09 to 12 the 21st EIGASAI Japanese Film Festival will be held at SM City Bacolod Cinema. We are going to be watching a number of quality and entertaining movies that will surely make us appreciate foreign movies more. Plus, admission is FREE so all you have to do is be there, sit back, and relax.
The Japanese Film Festival (JFF) is widely known and appreciated in the Philippines as EIGASAI. It is presented and run by the Japan Foundation, Manila and is held annually from July as part of the celebration of the Philippine-Japan Friendship Month. The JFF was launched in 1997 and has become one of the largest and most popular film festivals in the country. Every year it attracts over 25,000 audiences because it showcases a wide variety of visual pleasures from genres like drama, anime, mystery to recently released and popular award-winning Japanese movies.
This year is actually the 21st anniversary of EIGASAI as an arts and cultural exchange program. The festival also brings guests from Japan for special talks and discussions.
Admission to all the movies is absolutely free and is on a first-come, first-serve basis so it is advisable to go earlier than the screening time to get your free tickets. There will be a total of 12 participating films to be screened.
EIGASAI 2018 | Screening Schedule
EIGASAI 2018 | Featured Films in Bacolod City
TORI GIRL (2017)
Directed by: Hanabusa Tsutomu
Cast: Tsuchiya Tao, Mamiya Shotaro, Takasugi
The film adaptation of Nakamura Ko’s novel “Torigirl” which depicts the youthfulness of university students who stake everything on a flight contest held once every year on Biwa Lake in Shiga Prefecture. Yukina (Tsuchiya Tao) has just entered university. She is instantly smitten by an older student, Kei (Takasugi Mahiro), who invites her join the pilot team of the human-powered-flight club. The approximately 100 club members continue preparations for a summer contest, but another older student, Sakaba (Mamiya Shotaro), takes Yukina’s place as official pilot. Then one day, Kei suffers a serious injury.
RELIFE (2017)
Directed by: Furusawa Takeshi
Cast: Nakagawa Taishi, Taira Yuna
Live-action feature film adaptation of “ReLIFE,” which was serialized on the manga app comico and adapted for anime and stage performance. Directed by Furusawa Takeshi of Love for Beginners and Love and Lies. Depicts the main character giving his life a serious reevaluation. Twenty-seven-year-old Kaizaki Arata (Nakagawa Taishi) is unemployed after quitting his company job in just five months after something happens to him at work. One day, a mysterious man named Yoake Ryo (Chiba Yudai) invites him to participate in a social reintegration program called “ReLIFE” that involves taking medicine that will make him look 10 years younger and living as a high school student for one year only.
LET’S GO, JETS! FROM SMALL TOWN GIRLS TO U.S. CHAMPIONS?! (2017)
Directed by: Kawai Hayato
Cast: Hirose Suzu, Nakajo Ayami, Amami Yuki
Film adaptation based on the true story of the Fukui Commercial High School cheerleading team’s victory at the U.S. Championship. High school girls pour their hearts and souls into cheer dance. Directed by Kawai Hayato of MY love STORY!! Newbie high school freshman Tomonaga Hikari (Hirose Suzu) joins the cheer dance team on a lark so she can root for a certain boy at school. However, what awaits her is spartan training under the direction of a fiendish teacher. Her teammates quit one after another, but Hikari and her classmate Ayano (Nakajo Ayami) manage to endure the tough practices.
CHIHAYAFURU PART 1 (2016), CHIHAYAFURU PART 2 (2016), and CHIHAYAFURU PART 3 (2018)
Directed by: Koizumi Nori
Cast: Hirose Suzu, Nomura Shuhei, Mackenyu
A wonderful story about friends brought together by their passion for the traditional Japanese card game of Karuta. Determined to be the best, Chihaya forms a competitive Karuta club with Taichi to prove that the game is more than just about old customs and to hopefully reunite with their estranged friend Arata.
DAYTIME SHOOTING STAR (2017)
Directed by: Shinjo Takehiko
Cast: Nagano Mei, Miura Shohei, Shirahama Alan
An adaptation of Yamamori Mika’s identically titled comic which depicts the three-way relationship between a student, a classmate, and a teacher. In the director’s chair is Shinjo Takehiko who has directed Beyond the Memories, Your Lie in April, among other teen romance films. Suzume (Nagano Mei), who has never been in love, meets Shishio (Miura Shohei), her homeroom teacher at the high school to which she transferred. For the first time in her life, Suzume develops a crush on the kind and supportive Shishio. At the same time, the classmate sitting next to Suzume, Mamura (Shirahama Alan), who seemed averse to girls, confesses his feeling for her.
HONNOUJI HOTEL (2017)
Directed by: Suzuki Masayuki
Cast: Ayase Haruka, Tsutsumi Shinichi, Hamada Gaku
The “Honnoji Incident”, the most puzzling affair in Japan’s history, is the subject of this mystery. It portrays a woman who, under strange circumstances, travels back to the Warring States Period just prior to the incident and her encounter with military commander, Oda Nobunaga. At the helm is Suzuki Masayuki of HERO and Princess Toyotomi fame. Kuramoto Mayuko (Ayase Haruka) goes to Kyoto where her boyfriend’s parents live. In a back street, she finds and checks in to the Honnoji Hotel, but when she exits the hotel’s elevator, she emerges in 1582 Honnoji Temple.
TORA-SAN OF GOTO (2016)
Directed by: Oura Masaru
Cast: Inuzuka Torao
A documentary shot from 1993 and over 22 years chronicled a large family who make their living as udon noodle makers on the Goto Archipelago in Nagasaki Prefecture. It was awarded the Magnolia Award for Best Documentary at the 22nd Shanghai TV Festival. Inuzuka Torao, known as “Tora of Goto” runs an udon noodle making business on the Goto Archipelago. Everyday, his seven children wake up at 5am, help with the business for an hour, then head for school. Over the 22 years the documentary follows them, the children all grow up.
SURVIVAL FAMILY (2017)
Directed by: Yaguchi Shinobu
Cast: Kohinata Fumiyo, Fukatsu Eri, Izumisawa Yuki, Aoi Wakana
In this drama, a family scrambles about in an effort to survive a world without any electrical power. Waterboys director, Yaguchi Shinobu, writes and directs this film from his own original concept. The Suzukis are an ordinary family of four living in Tokyo. One morning, they wake to find all their electrical devices are not working. Then they learn the water and gas lines in their neighbors’ homes are also shut off. The father, Yoshiyuki (Kohinata Fumio), takes his family with him out of Tokyo in an attempt to escape the crisis.
MEMOIRS OF A MURDERER (2017)
Directed by: Irie Yu
Cast: Fujiwara Tatsuya, Ito Hideaki
“8000 MILES: SR Saitama’s Rapper” director Irie Yu remakes the 2012 Korean film Confession of Murder. Fujiwara Tatsuya of the “Death Note” series plays the enchanting killer Sonezaki, and Ito Hideaki of Lesson of the Evil plays Makimura, the detective who is following the case. The statute of limitations expires on an unsolved serial murder case that claimed five lives. Twenty-two years after the murders, the perpetrator suddenly comes forward. Sonezaki Masato (Fujiwara) shows up at the press conference with an defiant smile and a book confessing to his crimes in hand.
RUDOLF THE BLACK CAT (2016)
Directed by: Yuyama Kunihiko, Sakakibara Motonori
Cast: Inoue Mao, Suzuki Ryohei
“Rudolf and Ippai-attena,” a masterpiece of children’s literature, is now a 3D computer graphics animation movie. A tale of cats, their friendship, adventures, encounters and farewells. Rudolf (voice: Inoue Mao), a black cat, is suddenly separated from his beloved master. He unexpectedly wakes up in a longdistance truck that takes him to metropolitan Tokyo. There, he meets Ippai-attena (voice: Suzuki Ryohei), a big boss cat feared by everyone in town. Unable to return home, Rudolf starts a life as a stray with Ippai-attena.
If you want to know more information about EIGASAI, you may visit their website or check out their Facebook page.
- Website: www.jfmo.org.ph
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/pg/eigasaiPH
