At this year’s festival, the NIPPON CINEMA AWARD will be presented for the 21st time. This audience award, endowed with € 4,000, is donated by Metzler Bank in Frankfurt. All films in the NIPPON CINEMA section (except for TOKYO TAXI) that have at least their German premiere at the festival and were either produced in Japan or made by Japanese directors since 2025 are eligible for the competition. The award ceremony will take place on Sunday, June 7, 2026, at 7:45 p.m. at Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm Saal.

Nippon Cinema Award Competition Films

5 Centimeters per Second by Yoshiyuki OKUYAMA
ALL GREENS by Takashi KOYAMA
Blue Boy Trial by Kasho IIZUKA
Fiamma by Eiji UCHIDA
FIRST KISS by Ayuko TSUKAHARA
FUJIKO by Taichi KIMURA
A Moon in the Ordinary by Nobuhiro DOI
NEW GROUP by Yuta SHIMOTSU
Night Flower by Eiji UCHIDA
A Pale View of Hills by Kei ISHIKAWA
SAI: disaster by Yutaro SEKI und Kentaro HIRASE
Sato and Sato by Chihiro AMANO
SUZUKI=BAKUDAN by Akira NAGAI
TIGER by Anshul CHAUHAN