Whether you eagerly await the release of every new Japanese movie, or don’t know much about the films of the Land of the Rising Sun, the Jerusalem Cinematheque’s annual Aki-no Japanese Film Festival, which runs from January 22-31, will provide you with a window into the rich, ever-evolving world of contemporary Japanese cinema.
For the past decade, Aki-no has been one of the capital’s most eagerly anticipated cultural events; this year, it will present works from celebrated auteurs as well as rising talents.
The festival will be presented with the support of the Japanese Embassy in Israel and the Japan Information and Culture Center in Israel.
Aki-no is offering a package of four tickets that will also include admission to a lecture on Traditional Codes of Behavior and Contemporary Japanese Society on February 15, at the Japanese Culture House, located in Jerusalem’s Botanic Garden Campus.
Highlights from this year’s lineup
The opening film will be Love on Trial, directed by Koji Fukada, a Cannes prize winner for the movie, Harmonium. Love on Trial explores the pressures of celebrity and personal freedom through the story of a rising J-pop star caught in a media storm.
Sham, from Takashi Miike, one of Japan’s best-loved directors, is a tense courtroom story and a psychological thriller exploring allegations against a teacher.
Prof. Nissim Otmazgin, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Department of Asian Studies, will present a lecture in Hebrew exploring the film Tokyo Taxi, and will discuss broader themes in Japanese society and cinema. Directed by Yoji Yamada, it is a remake of the French film Madeline’s Driver. The movie presents a journey through Japanese life, as an older woman and her young taxi driver bond as they drive through the city.
Animation fans will find much to admire in Scarlet, the newest film from Mamoru Hosoda, who has acquired a reputation for blending heartfelt storytelling with jaw-dropping visuals. This fantasy-inflected tale, inspired by Hamlet, weaves themes of betrayal, reconciliation, and healing.
Seaside Serendipity, directed by Satoko Yokohama, is a lyrical film that captures the slow magic of childhood summers in a small coastal town. Based on a beloved manga, it looks at the world from the point of view of a sensitive child who meets a group of visiting artists.
The program also includes Brand New Landscape, a poignant family drama from Yuiga Danzuka that explores the long-lasting reverberations of parental separation on adult children, and looks at Tokyo’s shifting character as family bonds unravel in the modern world.
How Dare You, by Mipo Oh, is a youth-oriented rom-com that tells the story of schoolchildren whose activism for environmental issues leads to unexpected maturity.
The Real You, directed by Yuya Ishii, is a science fiction set in the near future, where a factory worker’s life is shattered when his mother chooses elective death. Using technology that reconstructs people from digital traces, he brings her back in a virtual space, confronting unsettling truths about memory and ethics.
Yasuko, Song of Days Past, directed by Kichitaro Negishi, offers a period piece that follows the romantic triangle between a poet, an actress, and a critic in early 20th-century Japan, a kind of Japanese take on Francois Truffaut’s masterpiece, Jules and Jim, which is set in the same period in France. Blue Boy Trial, directed by Kashou Iizuka, is a courtroom drama that grapples with social transformation and gender identity in the early ’60s.
Numakage Public Pool, by Shingo Ota, is a documentary about the last summer of a beloved community pool slated for demolition. In Sho Miyake’s Two Seasons, Two Strangers, two couples meet in different seasons, in a movie based on Yoshiharu Tsuge’s stories.
Ryota Nakano’s Bring Him Down to a Portable Size tells the story of a woman who learns some illuminating secrets after the death of her brother, a celebrated but difficult novelist. Toshizo Fujiwara’s The Longing explores the world of a restaurant that employs troubled youth.
Japanese cinema’s growing influence in Israel
Roni Mahadev Levin, the CEO of the Jerusalem Cinematheque and the festival’s curator, said in a statement, “It is debatable whether Japanese cinema, one of the five largest film industries in the world, appeals more to Western audiences, or whether it is precisely the Western audience that is adapting and approaching the formal style of cinema from the country at the end of the world.
“But in any case, the presence of Japanese cinema in the world’s most prominent festivals, and even in international commercial cinemas, is growing. This is certainly the case in Israel, where Japanese cinema is conquering the local audience.
“Many Japanese directors whose films we will be representing this year – such as Koji Fukada, Takashi Miike, Mifu O, and Mamoru Hosoda – are acquiring a following that awaits their next film.”
For more information about the festival, visit jer-cin.org.il/en/lobby/aki-no-japanese-film-festival-2026.