NYAFF guests and a surprise plus (unrelated) my next must see film

A couple of quick New York Asian Film Festival notes, then I promise we’ll let it rest for a while…or until the schedule comes out next week. (And no we’re not in the employ of the festival, we just like what they are showing- Its is the Best Film Festival in New York)

First up is the Subway Cinema blog is beginning their chat up on the guests at this years festival. If they follow the pattern from years past they will be doing a couple of countries a day. Today they posted the guests from Korea and they talked in detail about the Star Asia Awards. Over the next couple of days they do China, Taiwan and Japan.

When you look over the material look closely because there is a surprise in the mix - the announcement of a title not previously revealed- Crying Fist. Whether this replaces or is in addition to the films announced I don’t know.

Mondocurry posted earlier today that the schedule is up for Japan Cuts. and this includes the films that are also being co-presented by the NYAFF with the Japan Society. Tickets are not on sale yet but the titles and their show dates are up.

You’ll want to Jump when tickets go on sale because the titles this year are really good- AND THEY REALLY NEED TO BE SEEN ON A BIG SCREEN. I say this because some of the films are on DVD, but you really should see these films on a big screen.(I plan on some big screen repeats)

As I write this I’ve seen about 17 of the films they are showing and all I can say there are some real winners here. While there have been a couple I didn’t care for, none have made me wonder why they were being shown.

While we’ll be running a week of must see films the week before the festival and a large capsule review of everything else we’ve seen the night before, I’ll give a few hints of the real treasures once the schedule is posted next week.

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Cartoon Brew has posted the trailer for the film Tatsumi. This is a biography of Yoshihiro Tatsumi, a manga artist many consider the equal or better than Osamu Tezuka. I found Tatsumi's autobiography, A Drifting Life one of the best books I read in 2009 when it came out. Hell, I ended up buying an arm load of his graphic novels. It's with great happiness that I discovered that there is an animated documentary done in the style of Tatsumi's art. It should be a blast if it ever gets here. The trailer can be found here. This is now the one upcoming film I want to see the most.