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Japan Cuts Film Festival Screens Teiichi no Kuni, Neko Atsume, In This Corner of the World Films

posted on by Karen Ressler
NYC screenings slated for July

The Japan Society's Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film event in New York City will screen the Teiichi: Battle of Supreme High (Teiichi no Kuni), Neko Atsume House (Neko Atsume no Ie), and In This Corner of the World films this July. All three screenings will be in Japanese with English subtitles. The In This Corner of the World screening is sold out, and the waitlist will begin one hour prior to screening.

The live-action film of Usamaru Furuya's Teiichi no Kuni manga will screen under the title Teiichi: Battle of Supreme High on Friday, July 21. It will be the United States premiere of the film, which opened in Japan on April 29. The film sold 166,000 tickets, and earned 214 million yen (about US$1.91 million) on its opening weekend.

Japan Cuts describes the story:

Teiichi Akaba (Masaki Suda) has a singular dream: to crush the competition, become prime minister and rule his own country. But first he just has to get through high school. An absurdist satire of Japan's elitist pathways to the seats of power, Akira Nagai's adaptation of Usamaru Furuya's manga finds Showa-era blue-blooded teens battling for the student council presidency. Sabotage, bribery, ritual suicide, fisticuffs and more than a few unspoken crushes charge the boys' all out warfare, revealing the failures of hierarchical power systems and toxic masculinity. This achingly relevant, hilarious tale comes to a head when a working-class pro-democracy challenger questions the plutocrats' factional wrangle and Teiichi is forced to recall the pure passion that drove him to his totalitarian bloodthirst.

Akira Nagai (Sekai Kara Neko ga Kieta Nara) directed the film, and Yoshihiro Izumi (live-action Death Note, anohana) penned the script.

The Neko Atsume House live-action film based on Hit-Point's smartphone app Neko Atsume: Kitty Collector will screen at Japan Cuts on Sunday, July 16. The screening will be the east coast premiere. The film opened in Japan on April 8.

Japan Cuts describes the story:

Novelist Masaru Sakumoto (Atsushi Ito) is in a professional rut. Once a celebrated hotshot in the literary world, he is now forced to churn out a zombie-themed serial novel to make ends meet. Panicked by feelings of failure, he seeks out an old house in the countryside to find inspiration and jumpstart his creativity. Once he settles in, however, he notices that he has some curious, whiskered neighbors. Initially annoyed, he eventually finds the battle to attract their attention oddly satisfying. Based on the popular smartphone game, Neko Atsume House uses its very simple premise to create an entirely unexpected and creative comedic drama about artistic integrity and personal fulfillment—with plenty of kawaii cats!

Masatoshi Kurakata (Railways Ai o Tsutaerarenai Otona-tachi e, Game Center CX the Movie 1986 Mighty Bomb Jack) directed the film and Yūji Nagamori planned and wrote the screenplay.

In This Corner of the World will screen on Sunday, July 23 at Japan Cuts, and producer Taro Maki will be in attendance for a Q&A session.

Sunao Katabuchi (Black Lagoon, Mai Mai Miracle) wrote and directed the film, which is produced by GENCO and animation studio MAPPA. The anime has sold more than 2 million tickets in Japan since opening last November. The film went on to win the Fujimoto Award, the Daijin (Minister) Prize from the Agency for Cultural Affairs, the Hiroshima Peace Film Award at the Hiroshima International Film Festival, Kinema Jumpo magazine's best Japanese movie of the year, the Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the Year, and the Jury Award in the Feature Film Category at Annecy.

In addition to Japan, the film will screen in 23 countries and territories. The anime will open in the United Kingdom on June 28. The film will also screen at Anime Expo, and Katabuchi will attend for a Q&A session after the screening on July 2. Shout! Factory and Funimation Films will begin screening the film in the United States on August 11.


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