New York Japan CineFest 2024 - Day 2

This year marks the 13th edition of the New York Japan CineFest (NYJCF), which will screen a total of 15 Japanese independent short films over two days. The venue on Friday, November 1st, will be Asia Society in Manhattan, and on Saturday, November 2nd, it will be Thespis Theater in Queens. The main host is Mar Creation and the first day will be co-hosted by Asia Society, and by the Hellenic Cultural Center NYC. In collaboration with: Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia, and Jimbocho Movie Festival.

The 15 selected films for the 2024 edition cover a wide range of themes, from LGBTQ+ narratives like Me and Her and AI-themed AI Love You, to stories about post-war Japanese American families such as Resettlement: Chicago Story. The lineup also includes documentaries like Yasuke the African Samurai, which focuses on the historical African samurai, Yoichi’s White House, which follows the first official Japanese American photographer at the White House, and Okinawa Americana, a music documentary featuring blues and Okinawan folk music. Additionally, there’s an animation featuring a vegetable as the main character titled Tomatoes, and an experimental piece themed around torii gates called TORII, making for a rich and diverse selection.

NYJCF was established in 2012 by three Japanese individuals based in New York: Yasu Suzuki (actor and film director), Kosuke Furukawa (visual artist), and Hiroshi Kono (event and music producer, and representative of Mar Creation, Inc.). Since the 2015 season, in addition to screenings in various metropolitan areas across the U.S., including Boston and DC, they have collaborated with numerous film festivals in Japan. Due to the impact of COVID-19, they switched to online events starting in 2020, and from 2022, they have been hosting hybrid events. This year, they are also providing works for the Boston Japan Film Festival and Japanese Film Festival of Arizona.