Nippon Connection in Frankfurt, Germany: The summer festival of Japanese cinema

23rd Nippon Connection Film Festival from June 6 to 11, 2023 / Nippon Rising Star Award goes to actress Toko Miura / Thematic focus “Cityscapes and Countryside”

Nippon Connection brings Japanese cinema and culture to Frankfurt! For six days, from June 6 to 11, 2023 you can discover Japan with all senses. Instead of streaming on the sofa, the summer festival of Japanese cinema offers one-time big screen cinema experiences, intriguing talks with guests from Japan, a wide range of culinary specialties as well as many workshops and concerts. The two main venues of the 23rd Nippon Connection Film Festival are at Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm and Produktionshaus NAXOS. Further venues will include the Cinema at the DFF – Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum, Eldorado Arthouse Kino, Mal Seh’n Kino, Internationales Theater Frankfurt and NaxosAtelier. The complete program with more than 100 Japanese short and feature-length films and about 50 supporting program events will be published mid-May 2023.

For the first time, the festival will present the Nippon Rising Star Award, celebrating an up-and-coming talent of the Japanese film world. The awardee is singer and actress Toko Miura, who has also become well known internationally for her main role in the Academy Award-winning drama “Drive My Car” (2021) by Ryusuke Hamaguchi.

This year’s thematic focus “Cityscapes and Countryside”, supported by the Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain, explores life in the Japanese cities and the countryside. Until today, Japan is often said to be a country of contrasts, with centuries-old traditions meeting technological innovations, and megacities next to rural regions where time seems to stand still. About 20 selected feature and documentary films as well as lectures and discussions will create a differentiated picture of seemingly opposite worlds, without sentimentalizing country life or glorifying the big city.

In Germany and even Europe, only few Japanese films can be seen regularly in cinemas or on streaming platforms. The Nippon Connection Film Festival offers a unique chance to all festival visitors to discover fascinating new Japanese cinema – from shorts and documentaries to anime and large feature film productions. The majority of the films will celebrate their premiere at the festival with the filmmakers being present. After three years of the pandemic, the festival will be back to screening its program exclusively on the big screen and not as video-on-demand. “First and foremost, we want to create the Nippon Connection Film Festival as a magical place to experience cinema together and to talk with filmmakers and artists”, says festival director Marion Klomfass. Hotel partners offer special conditions for a stay during the festival: NipponConnection.com/hotels

 

The program and tickets are expected to be available on the festival homepage NipponConnection.com from mid-May 2023.

 

The festival

The Japanese Film Festival Nippon Connection is organized by the 70-member, largely voluntary team of the non-profit association Nippon Connection e. V.  It is under the patronage of Angela Dorn (Hessian Minister for Science and Art), Nargess Eskandari-Grünberg (Mayor of the City of Frankfurt am Main) and the Consulate General of Japan in Frankfurt am Main. Since its founding in 2000, Nippon Connection has become one of the world’s largest platforms for Japanese cinema and the most popular film festival in Hesse with more than 17.000 visitors in 2019.

A campaign to help fund the festival can be found on the online plattform betterplace.org: betterplace.org/en/projects/88584.