The 29th Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) will open with the British film “Florence Foster Jenkins” and close with one about shogi titled “Satoshi: A Move for Tomorrow.”

Organizers also announced that a one-day special anime event TIFF Ani!! will be offered for anime fans on Halloween on Oct. 31.

The 10-day festival will be held from Oct. 25 to Nov. 3 at the Roppongi Hills complex, EX Theater Roppongi and other venues in the capital.

The TIFF was started in 1985. In recent years, it has shone the spotlight on anime films. Last year, it screened “Garakowa: Restore the World,” “Miss Hokusai,” “Ajin: Demi-Human” and other works, in addition to covering the “Mobile Suit Gundam” robot anime franchise.

Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant, who starred in Stephen Frears’ “Florence Foster Jenkins,” will visit Japan for the occasion.

“Satoshi: A Move for Tomorrow” starring Kenichi Matsuyama is about Satoshi Murayama, a shogi Japanese chess master who died at a young age.

In addition to a special evening event at Kabukiza theater, the festival will host the TIFF Ani!! event at the Tokyo International Forum.

Little advance information has been disclosed, but it will focus on anime songs.

This year, the TIFF will also feature Mamoru Hosoda in a special program titled “The World of Mamoru Hosoda.”

Hosoda is a leading anime director whose latest work is “The Boy and the Beast,” which opened in 2015. More details about the program will be unveiled in late September.

Visit the festival’s official website at (http://2016.tiff-jp.net/en/).

 

(Source: http://www.asahi.com)