Star Flops, Slowing Investment Explain China's Thin Festival Presence

Star-driven box office flops and slowing investment lie behind China's low profile on the 2026 international festival circuit, according to Ichiyama Shozo, programming director of the Tokyo International Film Festival.

"In the past, casting a star in the leading role could guarantee a certain degree of success, but this year, many films featuring star actors have flopped at the box office," Ichiyama told Variety. He added that many titles are reportedly sitting unreleased as censorship has grown more complex. All of that, in his view, has something to do with the absence of a strong Chinese showing at festivals in 2026.

The claim rests on one programmer's assessment, and Ichiyama offers no box office figures to back it. What he does offer is history. Having worked closely with Chinese-language auteurs including Hou Hsiao-hsien and Jia Zhangke, he dates the mainland industry's sharp turn to the mid-2000s, when the booming economy multiplied multiplexes and let even independent projects without stars raise reasonable budgets.

Taiwan, by contrast, looks comparatively steady. Its home market has always been small, Ichiyama says, but a range of public support mechanisms keeps production going.

What fills the lineup instead?

This year's selection is marked by films about historical events, wars among them. They include Samuele Rossi's Competition entry "Even If Hell Came," which follows a young Italian partisan holding out in the Alps in the winter of 1944.

"I believe this reflects a global trend, as symbolized by the films dealing with the Second World War that were screened at this year's Cannes Film Festival," Ichiyama said. Most of these filmmakers, he believes, look back at past events as a way to examine a world that is growing more divided.

Tokyo's Competition requires at least an Asian premiere, though the festival pushes for world premieres; the split usually lands around half and half. Roughly half of the 15 Competition films come from Asia. Emerging directors get priority over established names, but veterans appear too: Garin Nugroho ("Red Before Dawn"), Milcho Manchevski ("Sister Brother Manhole Cover") and Bahman Ghobadi ("Trees Are Watching"). Ichiyama says the established directors in the selection are reaching for something different from their earlier work.

"We hope that our competition will serve as a platform for discovery," he said.

Is Japanese cinema healthy?

Ichiyama thinks so, with a caveat. Japanese Competition titles such as Ikeda Akira's "The Canary's Lullaby" and Yamamoto Akira's "The Intertwining" sit alongside the Nippon Cinema Now section; their makers lack international reputations so far but deserve recognition, he says. The Gala Selection — including opener "Sukiyaki" by Zeze Takahisa, Yamazaki Takashi's "Godzilla Minus Zero" and Sode Yukiko's "All the Lovers in the Night" — works with bigger budgets and commercial demands while holding an auteur sensibility.

"This demonstrates that the current state of Japanese cinema is in a very healthy condition," Ichiyama said. "While support for Japanese cinema has increased in various forms over the past few years, support for low-budget films is still insufficient."

Before Ichiyama's tenure, Tokyo lacked two things many festivals offer: production backing and education programs. Busan, in his view, introduced both first in Asia. Tokyo launched the Asian Students' Film Conference last year and added TIFF Work-in-Progress this year for Japanese films seeking finishing funds.

"Of course, this is not yet enough," Ichiyama said. The task for the next five years, he says, is to take that approach further — which means the gap Tokyo is closing is one it has just begun to measure.