Japanese Film Festival
Rich Theatre, Woodruff Arts Center
1280 W Peachtree Street Northwest, Atlanta, GA 30309
$7 general admission;
$6 students, seniors, and Museum members.
Patron level members enter free.
All films in Japanese with English subtitles.
Tickets available at the door or in advance at http://www.high.org/,
the Woodruff Arts Center Box Office, or 404-733-5000.
March 4, 8:00 pm
Chef of the South Pole 『南極料理人』 (2007)
This warm, quirky, appetite-inducing comedy is based on the real-life experiences of a chef who brought gourmet cuisine to one of the most inhospitable places on earth. Nishimura Jun cooked foie gras, lobster, and Matsuzaka beef for a group of eight researchers stationed at the South Pole. Deprived of the company of women, familiar landscapes, and even sunlight, they were sustained by the sensual pleasure and communal bonding provided by the meals he cooked. Masato Sakai and Kitaro star in Shuichi Okita’s charming film.
March 11, 8:00 pm
The Taste of Fish 『築地魚河岸三代目』 (2008)
In this delightful film based on a manga series by Masaharu Nabeshima, Takao Osawa plays HR specialist Shuntaro Akagi, who begins to long for something more when he is forced to lay off his colleagues, including his former mentor. He soon discovers that his girlfriend, department store window dresser Asuka (Rena Tanaka), is constantly exhausted because she has been helping out at her family’s fish stall at the world-famous Tsukiji Market. Wanting to give her a hand, Shuntaro suddenly shows up at the market, but he is woefully under-qualified for a job that takes decades to master. Will he be able to successfully learn the ropes and win over Asuka’s skeptical father, or will Shuntaro’s total lack of knowledge of the fish retail industry tear the couple apart?
March 18, 8:00 pm
Kamome Diner 『かもめ食堂』 (2006)
The Finns love salmon and so do the Japanese – and that’s why Sachie, an independent-minded woman ready to start a new chapter in her life, decides to open a diner specializing in onigiri --Japanese rice balls -- and other homey delights in Helsinki. Her spic-and-span restaurant, the Kamome (Seagull) Diner, is warmly lit but empty for weeks until a young man studying Japanese drops in for a cup of coffee and asks her if she knows the lyrics to the theme song for a popular 1970s anime series – Science Ninja Team Gatchaman. The tune haunts her but the words are lost, until she encounters a gangly, perpetually surprised-looking Japanese tourist named Midori, who remembers every phrase. With her open-ended schedule, Midori quickly becomes Sachie’s roommate and waitress, and the two patiently wait for the Seagull to be discovered. Director Naoko Ogigami’s charming, low-key comedy, an indie sleeper success story in Japan, builds upon the often cross-cultural relationships which blossom at the Kamome, nurtured by Sachie’s comforting food and welcoming presence. On the website Trans World Cultures, F. Chan observed, "The film works because it doesn’t rehearse the old arguments about alienation, about a lone individual trying to make it in an unfamiliar world. Instead, it offers the more challenging proposition, and yet simpler too, that one’s world is made by extending one’s own hospitality (in the film, via the food, and especially the onigiri) outward into the space one has chosen to inhabit with others."