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It was more than eight years ago that the virtually unknown Ryusuke Hamaguchi premiered Happy Hour, a five-hour narrative masterclass about four thirty-something women coming to terms with their own lives and relationship to one another. Against all odds, Hamaguchi has since become one of the biggest names in world cinema. Perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising to see him emerge as the preeminent influence on a fellow Japanese filmmaker––so appears to be the case with Toshihiko Tanaka’s Rei, the winner of the Tiger Competition at the 2024 International Film Festival Rotterdam.

Rei is a three-hour-plus, Tokyo-Hokkaido-set drama about Hikari, a thirty-something woman with a steady but unexciting job, an avid playgoing habit, and a concern that her life is a bit unexciting. She meets a favorite actor after attending a play with her friend, the mother of a nonverbal disabled child with a workaholic husband who rarely gets to go out.

Winner of the Tiger Award in this year's IFFR, and in one of the most touching moments of the whole festival, with the whole cast and crew on stage, “Rei” is a typical Japanese family drama, which stands out due to its cinematography but also fosters a number of the inherent issues of the local movie industry.

Rei is screening at International Film Festival Rotterdam

The kanji character “Rei” has no direct meaning by itself, but can find a number of meanings when combined with other characters, with the protagonists of the movie actually sharing a hypostasis quite similar to that of the kanji. 30-something company employee Hikari, eventually finds meaning when, after attending a stage play with her best friend, Asami, she is impressed by the quality of the poster, and begins searching for the particular landscape photographer. The man in question is a deaf landscape photographer, Mato, who has alienated his family,...

International Film Festival Rotterdam winner and debuting director Toshihiko Tanaka is set to follow “Rei” with “Shumari,” once again set in Japan’s Hokkaido.

“Over there, you can find the largest artificial lake in the country. It’s man-made, but it still beautifully harmonizes with the surrounding nature, creating a stunning landscape. It will be a suspenseful film, but if I had to sum it all up, I would say: It’s about love,” he tells Variety exclusively after the win.

Referencing actual events that took place before and after World War II, it will recall the tragedy of forced labor victims. Working on dam construction, both Japanese and Korean workers lost their lives. Some of them still await a proper burial.

“Attempts to excavate and repatriate their remains continue,” he adds.

“I’m anticipating a much higher budget than I had for ‘Rei,’ but I will mostly focus on...

Toshihiko Tanaka’s Rei won the top prize at the 2024 International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), taking home the €40,000 Tiger award at tonight’s closing ceremony (February 2).

The Japanese actor’s three-hour directorial debut explores human connection through a thirtysomething woman who embarks on a journey through the mountains and meets a deaf photographer. Tanaka also stars and produced the film which used mostly non-professionals and students in the cast and crew.

The jury, which included former IFFR director Marco Müller, said of the film: “[Tanaka’s] strength relies on a collaborative environment centred on the actors, an attention to the power of recitation – and,...

Japanese actor and director Toshihiko Tanaka’s human relationships drama Rei and Iranian filmmaker Oktay Baraheni’s tale of identity and society The Old Bachelor have won the top awards at the International Film Festival Rotterdam.

Rei won the €40,000 Tiger Award in the main Competition.

The drama revolves around a woman in her early thirties in a company job in Tokyo who is struggling to understand the value of her life until she meets a deaf landscape photographer living deep in the mountains of Hokkaido.

“The jury decided to give the Tiger Award to a burgeoning film director who chose to develop his debut film in a loose and unbounded environment,” said the jury consisting of Marco Müller, Ena Sendijarević, Nadia Turincev, Billy Woodberry and Herman Yau.

The two Special Jury Awards, worth €10,000 each, went to Indian director Midhun Murali’s Kiss Wagon, a political drama shot with a shadow play technique,...