Tokyo Film Festival's 39th Edition Draws Critics to Ginza Podcast

The 39th Tokyo International Film Festival ran from October 26 to November 4. The Film Stage marked the event with a live-recorded conversation between two of its regular voices, taped on a Saturday night at an outdoor restaurant in Ginza.

Who sat down for the conversation?

The Film Stage contributor Mark Asch joined the recording. He discussed two films drawn from the festival program: Hironori Kujiraoka's Saravah and Takenoshin Yaza's Hinotama: Ball of Fire. Asch delivered what the publication described as "a remarkably fluid set of thoughts" on both titles, recorded between sips of Asahi and bites of fried squid.

Katie Rife, who writes for the Letterboxd Journal, also joined the conversation. She offered perspectives on the festival as a whole, in a talk that unfolded informally in the middle of a city still running at full speed around the recorders.

The host framed the choice of setting as deliberate: "In the spirit of being at an ever-moving festival in a lively city, I recorded a conversation at an outdoor restaurant on a Saturday night in Ginza." The episode is available to stream or read in transcript form, and listeners can subscribe through the show's podcast feed.

What defined this year's festival?

The 39th edition mixed new premieres with archive programming. Restorations screened of work by Kenji Mizoguchi and Shinji Sōmai, alongside three films from Nikkatsu's Roman Porno canon. The Roman Porno line, a storied strand of Japanese studio filmmaking, has become a recurring subject of revival interest at international festivals.

The host, attending the festival as a critic, wrote that the event "mixed new titles that would surprise even the most hardened festivalgoer" with those restoration programs. The sentiment captures the festival's dual identity: a launchpad for contemporary Japanese and international cinema, and a site of active archival recovery.

One title hovered over the proceedings more than any other. The Japanese premiere of Godzilla Minus Zero, which The Film Stage had already reviewed at the New York Film Festival, "loomed over our talk as it did much of this year's festivities," according to the host.

Why record live from a festival?

The host's stated reason is annual and personal. Of attending TIFF, they wrote: "It is my great fortune to attend, every year offering titles that recenter my sense of a given film year." That claim — that a single festival can reorder a critic's map of twelve months of cinema — is the wager behind recording on site rather than filing from home after the fact.

The episode closes with credited music: "Love Theme from an Unreleased Film" by Lex Walton, from the album Giving It Up.

The recording stands as a snapshot of the 39th edition in motion: two critics, a festival city, and a premiere-heavy program still unfolding around them.