DEJIMA Japanese Film Festival

• Press
• Pressaccreditation
• Press releases
• Press release #2

Openingfilm: THE WHISPERING OF THE GODS
Contoversial drama and first feature film by director OMORI Tatsushi
Friday evening, 3 November - Het Ketelhuis, Amsterdam

Closing film: BIG BANG LOVE, JUVENILE A
Psychologic prison horror by MIIKE Takashi
(Audition, Ichi the Killer, The Great Yokai War, Sun Scarred)
Sunday evening, 5 november - Het Ketelhuis, Amsterdam

Mark in your agendas:
Wednesday 11 October – 10.30 hr. - press conference + film(s)
Het Ketelhuis, Haarlemmerweg 8-10, Amsterdam

THE WHISPERING OF THE GODS OPENS DEJIMA
The 2nd Dejima Japanese Film Festival will open on Friday evening 3 November with the Dutch première of the controversial drama The Whispering of the Gods(Germaniumu no yoru, 2006), the first feature film by director OMORI Tatsushi.

Over the past six months the film was distributed independently in a self-built theatre in downtown Tokyo to which viewers flocked in droves. As a consequence, the film flew deftly under the radar of Eirin, the Japanese film censor.

The scenes of violence and sexual abuse within a uniquely isolated Christian community in Japan do, however, dictate urgent questions, but above all they provide a stark and uncompromising view on life outside conventional society - in all its excesses.
This is contrasted by the aesthetic beauty of the film; OMORI portrays ugliness at its best, and adds colour to the muddy, snow-covered and morally dubious backdrop against which the dark side of religion is played out.

THE WHISPERING OF THE GODS has no distributor in The Netherlands.

DEJIMA's AMSTERDAM LEG CLOSES WITH BIG BANG LOVE, JUVENILE A
On Sunday evening 5 November, the Amsterdam edition of the 2nd Dejima Japanese Film Festival will close with the Dutch première of Big Bang Love, Juvenile A (46 Oku nen no koi, 2006), an unpredictable new direction in the sweeping film career of director MIIKE Takashi.

The Japanese answer to Dogville? In abstract sketches, this indefinable film by MIIKE Takashi provides an audio-visually hyper-stylized image of memories, power relationships, time shards and guilt within the walls of an isolated prison, where two prisoners meet. While outside a droning space shuttle and a pyramid that reaches into the heavens stand waiting, on the inside there is dancing, fighting against invisible enemies and... time ticking away.

As we wrote this press release, MIIKE is said to be working on his 70th production, and yet again he has managed to harness his bravura and originality in order to avoid the dangers of tedious repetition.

BIG BANG LOVE, JUVENILE A has no distributor in The Netherlands.

Want to know more?
Information about the festival programme, theme programmes, discussions, invited guests, screeners, ticketing and other matters will be announced to you in press releases. The same information will also be uploaded to the festival website

Artwork will be made available soon and can be downloaded from the website.

Request to the press:
Previously, in publicity the term 'Japanese' was frequently dropped from the full festival name. We kindly request you to write the full name as: Dejima Japanese Film Festival. In particular for those who are less familiar with the origin of the name, this addition is helpful.

The 2nd Dejima Japanese Film Festival is supported by the Japan Foundation, the Dutch Film Fund, the ThuisKopie Fund, the City of Rotterdam, the City of Utrecht and the K.F. Hein Fund.

FedEx Express, Benelux, Japan Airlines (JAL), Benelux, the International Insitute for Asian Studies (IIAS), Leiden and Amsterdam, Jalpak International B.V., Amsterdam, Asiamania and cinema Het Ketelhuis.