Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

Japanese Film Week Kicks Off in Egypt | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Japan Film Week, Japan Foundation, Cairo,


Cairo-The Japan Foundation’s Cairo office has opened the Japanese Film Week 2017 in its 2th edition, entitled “Taste of Life”, at the Artistic Creative Centre in the Cairo Opera House, held in cooperation with the Egypt Cultural Development Fund.

Running till March 2, the festival will feature a bouquet of special Japanese movies tackling different subjects, with and only one common factor: Japanese food.

Ghada Abdul Monem, media official in the Japan Foundation told Asharq Al-Awsat that all the movies were newly produced, and were showed in 2014 – 2015, except for the “Crimson Sky”, which was produced in 2007. This year’s festival screens a series of Japanese movies featuring the culture of gastronomy and cooking through some touching and funny stories, she added. Abdul Monem noted that all movies will be shown with English and Arabic subtitling, and that admission will be free.

The opening began with “Crimson Sky”, directed by Masaki Hamamoto. The 120-minute movie tells a story that took place in Tokyo during the Feudality Era in the mid-18th century.

“This year we present a variety of new-production Japanese feature films, all with different themes, where Japanese food is the common denominator among all of them, hence the event’s title is ‘Taste of Life’,” said Masakazu Takahashi, director of the Japan Foundation’s Cairo office.

He added that the film week witnesses the screening of the most popular films in Japan, like the animation movie “Silver Spoon”, which features the life of a high-school student struggling to figure out what he wants to do with his life after graduating from agriculture school. The animation falls under the umbrella of “manga” films comics originally published in Japan.

The week’s program also includes other hit films like “There Is No Lid on the Sea”, which goes around the life of city-stressed citizens who look for inner peace.

The Japan Foundation is an independent administrative institution founded in 1972 under the auspices of the Japanese Foreign Ministry to promote international understanding through cultural exchange and to maintain and develop harmonious relationships with foreign countries in different fields, such as arts, culture, language, and intellectual exchange.