Camera Japan Festival is a multidisciplinary Japanese arts and culture festival held each year in the Netherlands, in Rotterdam and Amsterdam. Part of the movie programme goes 'on tour' the rest of the year at various cinemas across the country.

Camera Japan Festival
LocationRotterdam and Amsterdam, Netherlands
Founded2006
Founded byStichting Tamago
Festival date21–24 September 2023, Rotterdam
28 September - 1 October 2023, Amsterdam
Websitehttp://www.camerajapan.nl

The mission of Camera Japan is to show the rich diversity of Japanese culture through film and other art forms. Camera Japan wants to be a meeting place between cultures, a festival with room for both high and low culture, for young and old, and for all nationalities.

History

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Since its inception in 2006 Camera Japan Festival presents an eclectic overview of contemporary Japanese cinema, ranging from popular anime to (experimental) arthouse and documentaries. Besides film there is ample attention for a wide range of aspects of Japanese culture, with musical performances in various locations, art installations, debates, tastings, workshops and much more.

Activities

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The extensive film programme consists of numerous short films, feature films and documentaries, most of which are only shown in the Netherlands during the Camera Japan Festival. Besides recent films, the festival also shows older classic and rare movies as part of a special retrospective. In the past few years the festival presented retrospectives on Japanese film noir, the soft-erotic pink movie and of the work of Kôji Wakamatsu en Shinji Somai.

CAMERA JAPAN Festival also organises a wide range of activities around its movie programme and the yearly main theme. Several concerts of Japanese bands and DJs, lectures, debates and workshops are organised. Fixed components are the interventions, unannounced performances ranging from traditional to experimental music and dance performances, the movie brunch and the CAMERA JAPAN Kid's Day, on which the youngest visitors get acquainted with the richness of Japanese culture and cuisine through traditional games and other activities.

Audience Award

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Each year at the end of the festival the feature-length film with the highest audience appreciation is announced.

Year Film Director
2022 Tokyo Kurds HYUGA Fumiari
2021 Ushiku Ian Thomas Ash [ja]
2020 ON-GAKU: Our Sound Kenji Iwaisawa [ja]
2019 Fly Me to the Saitama Takeuchi Hideki [ja]
2018 One Cut of the Dead Shinichiro Ueda [ja]
2017 A Silent Voice Naoko Yamada
2016 Flying Colors Nobuhiro Doi
2015 Kakekomi Masato Harada
2014 Uzumasa Limelight [ja] Ken Ochiai [ja]
2013 Tokyo Family Yōji Yamada
2012 Kamome Diner Naoko Ogigami
2011 Bunny Drop Hiroyuki Tanaka
2010 Wig [ja] Renpei Tsukamoto [ja]
2009 Osaka Hamlet [ja] Fujirô Mitsuishi [ja]
2008 Fine, Totally Fine Yosuke Fujita [ja]
2007 Tekkon Kinkreet Michael Arias
2006 Hibi: Days of Fire [ja] Banmei Takahashi

Partners

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Main location of the festival in Rotterdam is film and music theater LantarenVenster. The festival also works together with cultural institutions such as WORM (Rotterdam) and Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam.

In Amsterdam, Camera Japan has screened films and organised musical performances in Filmtheater Kriterion, Melkweg and EYE Film Institute Netherlands. Currently, the main location in Amsterdam is LAB111.

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