Director ANDREI KONCHALOVSKY, director of the Golden Globe winning film ‘RUNAWAY TRAIN’ (1986), held a master class on May 21st in Cannes. Read below interview with the director during the 65th Cannes Film Festival.     Q: Was it easier to make your second film?   Andrei: Easy? Nothing is easy. To make films is difficult anyway, even to make bad films. As a matter of fact, to make bad films its as difficult to make as good. The difference is very little and it&r...

  The 12th Japanese Film Festival Nippon Connection will run May 2-6, 2012, Frankfurt am Main   In just a few days, it will be "YOUKOSO!", and the Students' House at Bockenheim Campus in Frankfurt will become the center venue of an international film festival. From May 2-6, the Japanese film festival Nippon Connection will welcome cinema enthusiasts and friends of Japanese culture from Germany, Europe and the whole world in Frankfurt for the twelfth time. Be it ...

By Liza Foreman GRAND PLANS FOR OKINAWA: AMERICAN BASES TO BECOMEPOSSIBLE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY VILLAGES?   OKINAWA They say that laughter is the best medicine and thepeople of Okinawa should know. The southern outpost of Japan is famous for the longevityof its inhabitants, many of whom flocked to the 4th OkinawaInternational Movie Festival (March 24 – March 31, 2012), where the core themeswere laughter and peace. The peace section is for good reason. Here o...

By Liza Foreman TOKYO -   The rain stopped just in time for the celebrities to walk the green carpet, laid out for the opening of the 24th Tokyo International FilmFestival (October 22-30th) on Saturday. TIFF chairman Tom Yoda welcomed guests, including Jackie Chan, whose 100th film“1911” kicked off events as the special opening film. Highlights of the night included the cast of the “Fukushima Hula Girls,” participating as part of the national caravan for the recons...

The twelfth edition of FAREAST Film Festival has opened the lid of a treasure box containing vintage New films produced in the 50s and 60s, from the defunct SHIN-TOHO ("New Toho") film company, an off-shoot of the major TOHO-TOEI, created in 1947 to make genre films which the latter would distribute. The studio was one of six functioning during the Golden Age of Japanese cinema in the 1950's and employed some of the most famous directors like Akira Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi, a...

April is the Cruellest Month, or, Genocide African style, and a Shadowy Russian View of Emperor HirohitoAs the Berlin festival enters the home stretch political films and political biopics continue to score strongly. "The Sun"(‘Solntze’) by Alexander Sukorov provides a very dark Russian view of Japanese Emperor Hirohito during the crucial final days of the war and the immediate postwar days during which the descendant of the Sun God had to come to grips with his essential non-Godhood and wa...

New York Asian Film Festival (June 18-27) at the Anthology Film Archives (32 Second Avenue, at Second Street)announces the full program.Detailed Schedule:FRIDAY, JUNE 18 6:15 Dance with the Wind (98 minutes)8:30 Hero (98 minutes)10:30 Legend of the Evil Lake (92 minutes)SATURDAY, JUNE 19 2PM Zatoichi 3 (89 minutes)4:00 Antenna (116 minutes)6:30 Doppelganger (107 minutes)8:30 Juon (92 minutes)10:30 Juon 2 (91 minutes)SUNDAY, JUNE 20 2PM Zatoichi 4 (91 minutes)4 The Road Taken (103 minutes)6 Umiza...