The Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF), founded in 1985, is an A-category film festival that runs in the month of October .For the past few years, TIFF has replaced the traditional red carpet rolled for celeb arrivals with a green one, and programmed films that highlight the relationship between us human movie-goers and nature.This year's fest ran from Oct 23-31.Irish director Neil Jordon ("The Crying Game," "Interview with a Vampire", "Ondine" ) was the head of the festival jury this year . "The Social Network," by David Fincher was the opening film .This is the list of major category winners from the Festival:
1.Tokyo Sakura Grand Prix
Film :Intimate Grammar
Dir :Nir Bergman
Country :Israel
Overview :
Intimate Grammar pivots on a Peter Pan-ish adolescent boy in 1965 Jerusalem caught between an adult world he detests and a childhood he refuses to grow out of — physically and mentally. In the early 1960s, the state of Israel is coming into its own as it simultaneously heads toward armed conflict with Syria and Egypt. It’s at this time that smart, sensitive adolescent Aharon (Roee Elsberg), 13 years old and small for his age, finds himself drowning in his own life. His vulgar, anti-intellectual father is a pathetic parental role model and shrewish mother Hinda is putting the fear of god into him . His neighbor, Miss Blum , is the catalyst that causes his fragile family to implode, and he’s losing his first love to his more adult best friend Gidon .2.Special Jury Prize
Film :POST CARD
Dir :Kaneto Shindo
Country :Japan
3.Award for Best Director
Film : Sarah's Key
Dir :Gilles Paquet-Brenner
Country :France
Overview :
"Sarah's Key" relates a highly emotional yet unsentimental story about a Paris-based journalist digging into a Holocaust story that she discovers has a connection to her own family.The movie is based on a best-selling novel by journalist Tatiana de Rosney.The story gets told in two time frames. In present day, Kristin Scott Thomas playsAmerican-born journalist Julia Jarmond, who is working on a magazine story about the 1942 Paris roundups and deportations of thousands of Jewish families.Julia's husband, Bertrand Tezac is renovating his family's Marais-district flat as a new home for himself, his wife and their 11-year-old daughter. In her research, Julia discovers that Bertrand's family first took over the apartment when its Jewish occupants were dispossessed in that roundup.
The parallel story is that of a 10-year-old Sarah, whose family was among those deported to the camps.Little Sarah hides her 4-year-old brother Thomas in a bedroom closet when the French police arrive. She promises to return but instead finds herself first with her parents in the atrocious Velodrome d'Hiver detention facility in Paris, then transported to a countryside camp. Desperate to rescue her brother, she manages to escape.
Back and forth the movie swings between the two time periods. Julia searches with increasing determination for scrap of information that will tell her what happened to Sarah and her family.Her surprising discoveries throw a new light on her current situation as a wife and mother forcedto make crucial decisions about her future.4 .Award for Best Actress
Fan Bingbing
Film :Buddha Mountain
Dir :Li Yu
Country :China
Overview : Ding Bo and his friends Nan Feng (Fan Bingbing) and Fei are a trio of 20-something outsider-types that have no intention of sitting exams and getting into universities. When they need a new home for assorted reasons, they answer an ad placed by lonely, retired Chinese opera singer ,who is mourning the death of her son, and move into her sprawling apartment. Right off the bat, the foursome clash over lifestyle and values, with the bratty trio seeing fit to steal from her and invade her privacy. However, slowly but surely a bond among them develops and everyone eventually learns something from the next.5.Award for Best Actor
Wang Qian yuan
Film :The Piano in a Factory
Dir :Zhang Meng
Country :China
Overview :A laid-off steelworker named Chen (Wang Quin-yuan), has two passions in life -- his young daughter and music. When not minding his daughter and mentally deteriorating father, he plays accordion in a band composed of close friends and his girlfriend.Then his estranged wife suddenly materializes after a prolonged absence to demand a divorce and custody of their daughter . The little girl proposes that she will go with whichever parent provides her with a piano. So first, Chen tries to borrow money from his generally hapless friends and relations, then to steal a piano with those same hapless souls as his partners in crime.What is left to do but to construct his own piano, enlisting the help of his loyal friends and girlfriend? The group salvages material from the remains of the now-shuttered steel factory and other remnants of defunct state-run industries.
sources :imdb,hollywoodreporter,indiewire ,wikipedia
