So the Venice Film Festival is coming up. We’ll be there and we’re really excited to see Sion Sono’s live-action adaptation of Minoru Furuya’s manga Himizu. It is Japan’s lone representative in the official competition and it stars our friend (and JAPAN CUTS guest) Shota Sometani.

U.S.-based Iranaian filmmaker Amir Naderi’s homage to yakuza movies (hey, we did a Yakuza film series earlier this year…) Cut will open the Orizzonti (Horizons) section. A Persion exile in America making a movie about the Japanese underworld; that’s about as cross-cultural as a film can be. Shinya Tsukamoto’s anime project Kotoko will be screening in this series as well. Finally, Takashi Shimizu will be screening his latest 3D horror film, Tormented, out of competition. I’m predicting it’ll be nuts.