Japan Society announced the full lineup of 30 films for the 18th Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film taking place from July 10 – 20, 2025 in New York City.

Japan Cuts will honor filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa with the 2025 Cut Above Award for Outstanding Achievement in Film and host premieres of his latest films – the psychological thriller Cloud and Serpent’s Path, a bold reimagining of Kurosawa’s own 1998 original. In addition, the festival will present a rare 35mm revival of License to Live, along with the North American Premiere of the original Serpent’s Path’s 4K restoration.

Actress Yuumi Kawai, this year’s Best Actress winner at the Japan Academy Film Prize – the country’s equivalent to the Oscars, will attend the North American Premiere of A Girl Named Ann. Kawai earned the award for her performance in the film, a harrowing portrait of a young woman navigating life on the margins of Japanese society. She will also attned the U.S. Premiere of She Taught Me Serendipity, the latest feature from Japan Cuts favorite Akiko Ohku, costarring Riku Hagiwara. The festival will also present the New York Premiere of Teki Cometh, which swept last year’s Tokyo International Film Festival, winning Best Film, Best Director and Best Actor – and also featuring Kawai.

“We’re deeply proud to celebrate Japanese film in the heart of New York City,” says Peter Tatara, Director of Film at Japan Society, who organized this year’s festival with Japan Society Film Programmer Alexander Fee. “Each year, Japan Cuts presents a look into the contemporary Japanese cinema scene, spotlighting both major award-winners as well as rising stars, and we hope this festival helps build bridges between film lovers in New York and filmmakers in Japan— and more broadly between our two countries—with film a tremendous snapshot into modern Japan’s culture, values and soul.”

All films will be screened at Japan Society (333 East 47th St., New York, NY 10017) and presented in Japanese with English subtitles.

2025 Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film Program Lineup

Opening Film

ChaO (Special Screening)
ChaO(チャオ)
Dir. Yasuhiro Aoki, 2025, 90 min., DCP, color, in Japanese with English subtitles. With Ouji Suzuka, Anna Yamada.
Yasuhiro Aoki’s debut feature joins the lineage of Studio 4ºC’s (Mind Game, Tekkonkinkreet) innovative oeuvre, formulating an idiosyncratic Andersen fairy tale set in the cyberpunk melange of near-future Shanghai where humans coexist with mermen. Ordinary salaryman Stephan is catapulted to instant fame when he is suddenly proposed to by Chao, the mermaid princess. Entrusted with the future of human-mermen relations, Stephan is rushed into the pairing, amid a flurry of politicking and diplomacy, and reluctantly agrees to marry the fish princess, but despite the makings of a political marriage, the effervescent Chao’s ardent affection sparks genuine connection. With its off-kilter brand of humor, unique kineticism and superb hand-drawn art style— purportedly utilizing over 100,000 hand-drawn frames—Aoki’s Chao is a fantastical spectacle with a deluge of heartfelt passion, produced over the course of seven years. With Opening Night Reception.

Centerpiece Film

Cloud (New York Premiere)
クラウド(Kuraudo)
Dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2024, 124 min, DCP, Color, in Japanese with English subtitles. With Masaki Suda, Kotone Furukawa, Amane Okayama.
Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s third film in a prolific year, following the creative spurt of Chime and Serpent’s Path, shapes up to be a slow-burn techno-thriller, one which takes its name from today’s ubiquitous virtual cloud. Moonlighting as a black market internet reseller for fake merchandise and products, factory worker Yoshii’s (Masaki Suda) get-rich-quick schemes and morally dubious actions seem to pay off when afforded the opportunity to move out to a remote, wooded lake house seemingly perfect for his business dealings. Rattled by strange incidents, however, Yoshii finds his errant ways catching up to him when unknown assailants target him. Kurosawa’s suspense-driven exercise in the action genre envisions the amplified ire of internet culture as a radicalized hydra of sprouting heads, amassing an anonymous network to quash its petty grievances. Kurosawa, as he so often does, masterfully finds terror in the mundane. CUT ABOVE Award Ceremony, Q&A with Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Centerpiece Reception.

Closing Film

The Spirit of Japan (World Premiere)
The Spirit of Japan
Dir. Joseph Overbey, 2024, 48 min., DCP, color, in Japanese with English subtitles. With Tekkan Wakamatsu, Kazunari Wakamatsu, Ranko Wakamatsu.
The Spirit of Japan is the story of the Wakamatsu family, who have been distilling sweet potato shochu by hand at their Yamatozakura Distillery in Kagoshima Prefecture since the 1850s. This documentary follows fifth-generation master brewer Tekkan Wakamatsu as he takes 175-year-old traditions passed down by his father Kazunari Wakamatsu and strives to adapt them to a rapidly changing market driven by commodification and mass consumerism. Director Joseph Overbey lived with the Wakamatsu family as he shot The Spirit of Japan, offering a rarified look inside the shochu-making production, an intimate portrait of family succession and an unflinching glimpse into the harsh realities of preserving tradition in the modern world. Q&A with Director and Producer, Reception featuring shochu from Yamatozakura Distillery.

Feature Slate

In Alphabetical Order

Blazing Fists (U.S. Premiere)
BLUE FIGHT 蒼き若者たちのブレイキングダウン (BLUE FIGHT Aoki Wakamono-Tachi No Bureikingudaun)
Dir. Takashi Miike, 2025, 119 min., DCP, color, in Japanese with English subtitles. With Danhi Kinoshita, Kaname Yoshizawa, Gackt, Anna Tsuchiya.
From iconoclastic director Takashi Miike and with a cast including pop stars Gackt and Anna Tsuchiya, Blazing Fists is the story of two men in a juvenile reformatory determined to redeem themselves through a fighting tournament, told with exuberant outbursts of Miike’s hallmark action, humor and violence.

ChaO (Special Screening)
ChaO (チャオ)
Dir. Yasuhiro Aoki, 2025, 90 min., DCP, color, in Japanese with English subtitles. With Ouji Suzuka, Anna Yamada.
An idiosyncratic Andersen fairy tale set in the cyberpunk melange of near-future Shanghai, Yasuhiro Aoki’s animated feature debut ChaO is a fantastical spectacle with a deluge of heartfelt passion, produced over the course of seven years at the imaginative Studio 4ºC. With Opening Night Reception.

Cloud (New York Premiere)
クラウド (Kuraudo)
Dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2024, 124 min, DCP, Color, in Japanese with English subtitles. With Masaki Suda, Kotone Furukawa, Amane Okayama.
Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s third film in a prolific year, following the creative spurt of Chime and Serpent’s Path, shapes up to be a slow-burn techno-thriller that takes aim at the internet’s amplifying nature to radicalize the pettiest of grievances into real-world danger. CUT ABOVE Award Ceremony, Q&A with Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Reception.

The Gesuidouz (U.S. Premiere)
ザ ゲスイドウズ (Za Gesuidouz)
Dir. Kenichi Ugana, 2024, 94 min., DCP, color, in Japanese with English subtitles. With Natsuko, Leo Imamura, Yutaka Kyan, Rocko Zevenbergen, Yuya Endo.
Musician Hanako believes she has one year left to live and embarks with her horror-themed punk band on a quest to write the world’s best punk song… in a rural farming.

A Girl Named Ann (North American Premiere)
あんのこと (An No Koto)
Dir. Yu Irie, 2024, 113 min., DCP, color, in Japanese with English subtitles. With Yuumi Kawai, Jiro Sato, Goro Inagaki.
Yuumi Kawai won Best Actress at this year’s Japan Academy Film Prize for her stunning performance in A Girl Named Ann, the story of a teenage dropout attempting to rebuild her life amid a world which sees her as only garbage. Written and directed by the lauded Yu Irie and inspired by a painfully true story. Q&A with Yuumi Kawai.

Gridman Universe (North American Theatrical Premiere)
グリッドマン ユニバース (Guriddoman Yunibasu)
Dir. Akira Amemiya, 2023, 118 min., DCP, color, in Japanese with English subtitles. With Hikaru Midorikawa, Yuya Hirose, Yume Miyamoto, Soma Saito, Junya Enoki.
Studio Trigger, one of the most explosive anime studios in Japan, reimagines Tsuburaya Productions’ classic tokusatsu series Gridman: The Hyper Agent in an all-new big screen spectacle celebrating the tokusatsu and kaiju genres and injecting them with their trademark overthe-top, stylish action.

Kaiju Guy! (North American Premiere)
怪獣ヤロウ！(Kaiju Yaro!)
Dir. Junichiro Yagi, 2024, 80 min., DCP, color, in Japanese with English subtitles. With Gumpy.
Ichiro Yamada (Japanese comedian Gumpy) is ordered to produce a “local movie” to increase
tourism in his sleepy city. However, Yamada proposes something else—a local kaiju movie. A
delightful, heartfelt and rewarding comedy, Kaiju Guy! will make you roar.

Kowloon Generic Romance (World Premiere)
九龍ジェネリックロマンス (Kuron Jenerikku Romansu)
Dir. Chihiro Ikeda, 2025, 120 min., DCP, color, in Japanese with English subtitles. With Riho Yoshioka, Koshi Mizukami.
Reiko (Riho Yoshioka) works at a real estate agency in the Kowloon Walled City. As she starts to develop feelings for a coworker, her budding emotions surface long-forgotten memories and soon yesterday and tomorrow swirl in a world of perpetual nostalgia as Jun Mayuzuki’s acclaimed science fiction romance manga comes to life.

My Sunshine (New York Premiere)
ぼくのお日さま ( Boku No Ohisama)
Dir. Hiroshi Okuyama, 2024, 90 min., DCP, color, in Japanese with English subtitles. With Sosuke Ikematsu, Keitatsu Koshiyama, Kiara Nakanishi.
An aching film about an adolescent ice-dancing duo that captivates with a wistfulness for the wonders and pain of young love—and at the same time confronts the deeper subjects of Japan’s attitudes towards masculinity and homosexuality.

The Real You (North American Premiere)
本心 (Honshin)
Dir. Yuya Ishii, 2024, 122 min., DCP, color, in Japanese with English subtitles. With Sosuke Ikematsu, Ayaka Miyoshi, Koshi Mizukami, Taiga Nakano.
Based on a novel by the Akutagawa-Prize winning Keiichiro Hirano. Following the death of his mother, Sakuya Ishikawa (Sosuke Ikematsu) creates a “Virtual Figure” from her memories in a dark science fiction mystery injected with the same sharp satire as Black Mirror. Featuring an introduction by author Keiichiro Hirano, followed by a book signing.

A Samurai in Time (New York Premiere)
侍タイムスリッパー (Samurai Taimusurippa)
Dir. Junichi Yasuda, 2024, 131 min., DCP, color, in Japanese with English subtitles. With Makiya Yamaguchi, Norimasa Fuke, Yuno Sakura.
At the end of the Edo period, a flash of lightning sends a samurai into the present day. The biggest Japanese indie phenomenon since One Cut of the Dead, this low budget film was initially shown in only one theater, but through word-of-mouth grew into a sensation and ultimately took home Best Film at this year’s Japan Academy Film Prize.

Serpent’s Path (2024) (East Coast Premiere)
蛇の道 (Hebi No Michi)
Dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2024, 113 min, DCP, Color, in French with English subtitles. With Ko Shibasaki, Damien Bonnard, Mathieu Amalric, Hidetoshi Nishijima.
A higher budget remake of Kurosawa’s 1998 straight-to-video effort, Serpent’s Path is a fascinating variation on the original, supplanting Tokyo for the overcast banlieues of Paris. Eerily echoing its predecessor in its snaking narrative, Kurosawa’s psychological experiment explores the haunting obsession of a man subsumed by the desire for retribution after his daughter is killed. Q&A with Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa.

She Taught Me Serendipity (U.S. Premiere)
今日の空が一番好き、とまだ言えない僕は (Kyo No Sora Ga Ichiban Suki, To Mada Ienai Boku Wa)
Dir. Akiko Ohku, 2025, 127 min., DCP, color, in Japanese with English subtitles. With Riku Hagiwara, Yuumi Kawai, Aoi Ito, Kodai Kurosaki.
JAPAN CUTS’ favorite Akiko Ohku explores the life of college student Konishi who forms a unique bond with classmate Hana (Yuumi Kawai). Sensory and sonically attuned, She Taught Me Serendipity inventively constructs an approximation of Konishi’s psyche, and shines in its open- hearted confessions, soul-baring and poignant in their nature. Q&A with Yuumi Kawai, followed by a Reception.

Teki Cometh (New York Premiere)
敵 (Teki)
Dir. Daihachi Yoshida, 2024, 108 min., DCP, black and white, in Japanese with English subtitles. With Kyozo Nagatsuka, Kumi Takiuchi, Yuumi Kawai, Asuka Kurosawa.
A retired college professor lives a quiet life alone, until one day he finds a post on the internet about an approaching “enemy” and the world around him begins to melt into paranoia, dream, delusion and fantasy. Widely praised in Japan, Teki Cometh won Best Film, Best Director and Best Actor at last year’s Tokyo International Film Festival.

Yasuko, Songs of Days Past (North American Premiere)
ゆきてかへらぬ (Yuki Teka Heranu)
Dir. Kichitaro Negishi, 2025, 128 min., DCP, color, in Japanese with English subtitles. With Suzu Hirose, Taisei Kido, Masaki Okada. Screenplay by Yozo Tanaka.
A resplendent Taisho-set historical drama penned by Seijun Suzuki scribe Yozo Tanaka (Zigeunerweisen) and directed by 80s auteur Kichitaro Negishi, Yasuko fixates on the tumultuous entwinement of modernist poet Chuya Nakahara, aspiring actress Yasuko Hasegawa and literary critic Hideo Kobayashi.

Next Generation

This sole competitive section of the festival features a hand-picked selection of independently produced narrative feature films by emerging directors who offer a glimpse into the future of Japanese cinema. One film within the section—determined as the most accomplished by a jury of film industry professionals—will receive the “Obayashi Prize” in honor of the late filmmaker Nobuhiko Obayashi (1938-2020).

Michiyuki – Voices of Time (World Premiere of Final Version)
道行き (Michiyuki)
Dir. Hiromichi Nakao, 2024, DCP, b&w, 79 min., in Japanese with English subtitles. With Daichi Watanabe, Kanjuro Kiritake, Hiromichi Hosoba.
Moving into an old house in the rural countryside, videographer Komai converses with its former owner Umemoto, drawing from personal memories to discuss histories, cartographies and the passage of time, reflecting upon the changing tides of tradition and progress within generational spans of the town’s history.

See You Tomorrow (North American Premiere)
ほなまた明日 (Hona Mata Ashita)
Dir. Saki Michimoto, 2024, 99 min., DCP, color, in Japanese with English subtitles. With Makoto Tanaka, Ryota Matsuda, Risa Shigematsu.
A gentle coming-of-age drama, Saki Michimoto’s slice-of-life debut involves itself in the life of gifted art school photographer Nao as she decisively steers herself to her dreams, facing the hard choice of leaving behind the familiar.

Promised Land (New York Theatrical Premiere)
プロミスト・ランド (Puromisuto Rando)
Dir. Masashi Iijima, 2023, 89 min., DCP, color, in Japanese with English subtitles. With Rairu Sugita, Kantaro.
Masashi Iijima’s feature film directorial debut follows two matagi (traditional Japanese hunters) as they embark on a bear hunt in secret, preserving their custom despite a governmental ban. Told through long shots and minimal dialogue, this austere film allows the audience ample time to reflect on the conflict between tradition and progress in its wide stretches of silence amid snowy mountain vistas.

So Beautiful, Wonderful and Lovely (North American Premiere)
素敵すぎて素敵すぎて素敵すぎる (Sutekisugite Sutekisugite Sutekisugiru)
Dir. Megumi Okawara, 2025, 67 min, color, in Japanese with English subtitles. With Megumi Okawara, Shin Namura, Naoko Miya.
Imbued with a sense of real youthful energy, So Beautiful, Wonderful and Lovely is a frenetic display of heartbreak filled with whimsical leanings, overflowing with creative ambition. Q&A with Director Megumi Okawara.

Classics

License to Live ニンゲン合格 (Ningen Gokaku)
Dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 1998, 109 min, Archival 35mm, Color, in Japanese with English subtitles. With Hidetoshi Nishijima, Koji Yakusho, Shun Sugata.
Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s fascinating 1998 reconstruction of Sam Peckinpah’s The Ballad of Cable Hogue lifts the film’s framework to chronicle a man’s life (Drive My Car’s Hidetoshi Nishijima) after waking up from a 10-year coma. Irreverent, comic and heartfelt, License to Live constitutes an early show of Kurosawa’s remarkable adaptability and versatile range.

Love Letter (International Premiere of 4K Restoration)
Love Letter
Dir. Shunji Iwai, 1995, 117 min., DCP, Color. With Miho Nakayama, Etsushi Toyokawa, Miki Sakai, Takashi Kashiwabara.
Iwai’s achingly bittersweet epistolary breakthrough evokes an intoxicating romanticism of lost love, recollection and grief—all amid a picturesque setting in the blanche wintertide of Otaru. Beloved throughout Asia, Love Letter would capture the hearts of an entire generation, swept over by its sincerity and the late Miho Nakayama’s eternal mountainside cry “O genki desu ka?”

Serpent’s Path (1998) (North American Premiere of 4K Restoration)
蛇の道 (Hebi No Michi)
Dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 1998, 85 min, DCP, Color, in Japanese with English subtitles. With Sho Aikawa, Teruyuki Kagawa, Yurei Yanagi.
Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s 1998 V-Cinema production relays the muted horror of obsessive vengeance when a father attempts to avenge his daughter’s brutal murder by kidnapping and torturing a suspected yakuza. A winding descent into a near-fanatical desire to avenge, Serpent’s Path bleakly resigns to a goal which becomes ever more obscure.

SHORT CUTS

End of Dinosaurs (U.S. Premiere) End of Dinosaurs
Dir. Kako Annika Esashi, 2024, 28 min., DCP, color, in Japanese with English subtitles. With Kako Annika Esashi, Shota Imai, Leica Sasafu.
A young community organizer, a free-spirited girl and a drag queen set out to challenge a dinosaur-ridden town’s attempt at redevelopment. A delightfully quirky and poignant film from Japanese American filmmaker Kako Annika Esashi. Winner of the Special Jury Prize at the PIA Film Festival.

Flow (New York Premiere) フロー (Furo)
Dir. Shoko Tamai, 2025, 5 min., DCP, color, in English. With Dandara Amorim Veiga, Niara Hardister, Minami Ando, Xiaoxiao Cao, Isaiah Newby, Maxfield Haynes
The word “taboo” comes from the French Polynesian word “tapua.” It means sacred blood. Flow is an experimental short film that honors the taboo inside every woman, the cycle of the moon and the power of creation. With Director Introduction.

I Am Not Invisible (U.S. Premiere)
Dir. Yuki York, 2024, 24 min., DCP, color, in Tagalog, English and Japanese with English subtitles.
Winner of the 2024 PIA Grand Prize, Yuki York’s self-reflexive documentary is a personal essay, shot in an impoverished district of the Philippines, deemed “invisible” by York’s on-screen text. Tracing York’s roots, I Am Not Invisible asks local residents innocuous questions about their lives to better understand them, in turn offering to better understand York’s own Filipina grandmother.

Tree of Sinners (North American Premiere)
罪⼈の⽊ (Zaininnoki)
Dir. Rii Ishihara and Hiroyuki Onogawa, 2024, 25 min., color, in Japanese with English subtitles. With Sumire, Masatoshi Kihara, Ann Nishihara, Rii Ishihara.
Husband and wife team Rii Ishigara and Hiroyuki Onogawa (composer of August in the Water) craft a surreal Taisho fantasy set in a remote mansion, where a maid is forbidden to enter the room of her master’s sick wife. Visually arresting, the pair’s second medium-length work is a beautifully dark fable.

Documentary

Japanese Avant-Garde Pioneers (New York Premiere)
日本前衛派の開拓者(Nihon Aen’ei-Ha No Kaitaku-Sha)
Dir. Amélie Ravalec, 2024, 100 min., DCP, color, in English and Japanese with English subtitles. With Nobuyoshi Araki, Tadanori Yokoo, Keiichi Tanaami.
Exploring the explosion of postwar radical art in the 1960s and the rise of Japanese avant-garde, Japanese Avant-Garde Pioneers is an enthralling glimpse into the outsider art of Japan’s underground movements. Q&A with Director Amélie Ravalec.

The Spirit of Japan (World Premiere)
The Spirit of Japan
Dir. Joseph Overbey, 2024, 48 min., DCP, color, in Japanese with English subtitles. With Tekkan Wakamatsu, Kazunari Wakamatsu, Ranko Wakamatsu.
The story of the Wakamatsu family, who have been distilling sweet potato shochu by hand at their Yamatozakura Distillery in Kagoshima Prefecture since the 1850s. With Director & Producer Q&A. Followed by a Reception.

What Should We Have Done? (New York Premiere)
どうすればよかったか? Dou Sureba Yokattaka?
Dir. Tomoaki Fujino, 2024, 101 min., DCP, color, In Japanese with English subtitles.
Tomoaki Fujino’s independent sleeper hit documents 20 years of his sister’s life, who after exhibiting signs of schizophrenia in her early 20s, lived on without being treated due to his parents’ denial of her illness. Heartbreaking, What Should We Have Done? actively explores and confronts the cultural disparities associated with mental illness in Japan.