North America s largest Japanese film festival presents two weeks of contemporary movies from Japan, including opening film THE FIRST SLAM DUNK directed.
'My Small Land,' which centers on young girl and her family seeking asylum in Japan, is based on extensive interviews that the director conducted over the space of nearly two years.
Now showing
“Tokyo Kurds” offers a little more warmth, mostly because it takes place in the outside world, though its characters could hardly be described as free.
Shot over the course of five years, the film centers on two Kurdish men on the cusp of adulthood. Both were brought to the country as children and chat with each other in fluent Japanese, though in other respects they’re quite different.
Ramazan, soft-spoken and delicate-featured, is trying to be a model citizen, and studying eagerly for college entrance exams with the hope of becoming an interpreter. Ozan, a tough, charismatic high-school dropout who looks like he’s been taking fashion pointers from Cristiano Ronaldo, is working off-the-books with a demolition crew.