Tokyo Film Festival Unveils 39th Edition Lineup

The 39th Tokyo International Film Festival will open with Zeze Takahisa's Sukiyaki, center on Takashi Yamazaki's Godzilla Minus Zero, and close with Yeon Sang-ho's South Korean Colony, according to the lineup announced for this year's edition.

The Main Competition section comprises Asian premieres of Lisandro Alonso's Double Freedom (Chile/Argentina/Luxemburg/Germany/UK) and Qiu Jiongjiong's Fuxi: Four Tales of Feasting (Hong Kong/Taiwan/Japan/Saudi Arabia/Qatar), the much-anticipated follow-up to the Chinese director's A New Old Play, starring Lee Kang-sheng. Fifteen films compete in total, including new works by Garin Nugroho (Red Before Dawn, Indonesia), Milcho Manchevski (Sister Brother Manhole Cover), Bahman Ghobadi (Trees Are Watching, Türkiye), Sun Xun (Magic Atlas, Singapore), Jelena Maksimović (Until the Day Ends) and Teodora Ana Mihai (Heysel 85, Belgium/The Netherlands/Germany).

Programming Director Ichiyama Shozo framed the selection as cinema in dialogue with history. The competition titles, he said, represent "looking back at the past—not out of mere nostalgia, but to use historical events to decode the contemporary psyche and understand our world on a profound level."

The retrospective programming takes that idea furthest. A 13-film Kenji Mizoguchi retrospective spans Osaka Elegy and Sisters of Gion (both 1936) through Street of Shame (1956), including Ugetsu (1953), Sansho the Bailiff (1954), The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums (1939) and the two-part The 47 Ronin (1941–42). An eight-film Youssef Chahine selection runs from Cairo Station (1958) to Destiny (1997), taking in Alexandria Why (1978), An Egyptian Story (1982), Adieu Bonaparte (1984), Alexandria Again And Forever (1989) and the documentary Cairo, As Told by Chahine (1991).

Both retrospectives sit within a World Focus Selection that also features three films by Ulrike Ottinger: her Isabelle Huppert-led The Blood Countess (Austria/Luxembourg/Germany, 2026), plus Under Snow (2011) and Ticket of No Return (1979). The same section carries 2026 titles from Valeska Grisebach (The Dreamed Adventure), Angela Schanelec (My Wife Cries), Amos Gitai (The Road to Jericho), Ilya Khrzhanovsky (DAU), Albert Serra (Sixteen Moments of My Life), Lav Diaz (Let Us Through, Dear Ancestors), Lê Bảo (Hearing) and Edwin (Sleep No More), alongside Roger Corman's The Masque of the Red Death (1964), a Taiwanese spotlight and a restored Good Neighbors (Lee Hsing, 1962/2026).

The Gala section mixes films already available in North America, such as Jane Schoenbrun's Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, with titles showing no sign of a stateside debut. Those include Cristian Mungiu's Fjord (Romania/France/Norway/Sweden/Denmark/Finland), Martin McDonagh's Wild Horse Nine, Tony Gilroy's Behemoth!, Michael Showalter's Verity, Wayne Wang's Diary of a Mad Old Man, Rodrigo Sorogoyen's The Beloved, Sabu's Arrested Memory (Taiwan/Japan), Kazuya Shiraishi's Bye Bye Love: Detective Is in the Bar, Yukiko Sode's All the Lovers in the Night, and Hiroshi Ando's A Bouquet of Light for You.

Additional sections round out the program. The Asian Future Selection presents ten first- and second-feature-region works, including Navid Mohammadzadeh's I'm Nothing Special Really (Iran) and Azamat Shargyn's Shyrmauyq (Kazakhstan). Nippon Cinema Now offers nine Japanese titles, among them Inudo Isshin's Yamazaki Riverside: Over an Actor's Shoulder. The Women's Empowerment Selection includes Manuela Martelli's The Meltdown and Muriel d'Ansembourg's Truly Naked. CROSSCUT ASIA+ brings Kamila Andini's Four Seasons in Java and Rafael Manuel's Filipiñana, and a twelve-title Animation Selection spans The Rose of Versailles to a new Detective Conan entry.

For a festival whose recent editions have premiered films that rarely reach North American screens, the 2026 lineup suggests that pattern will hold — with coverage from Tokyo to follow later this month.