This 2025 edition attracts the biggest audiences and most positive audience reactions in the Festival’s 14-year history.
The GRAND JURY PRIZE is awarded to the feature selected as the best film among this year’s festival offerings. Films are reviewed by an Official Jury made up of film makers, film professionals, artists, writers and educators. The winning film maker is awarded with a certificate and a cash prize of 100,000 Japanese yen.
The KOBAYASHI AUDIENCE CHOICE AWARD is named in honour of Coby and Yone Kobayashi, a second-generation Nikkei couple whose vision, generosity and tireless efforts over 50 years were essential to the creation and success of the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre. Mr. and Mrs. Kobayashi’s community-mindedness and generosity of spirit supported and inspired the building of the Kobayashi Hall.
The Toronto Japanese Film Festival is pleased to announce our 2025 Grand Jury Prize for Best Film is awarded to Daihachi Yoshida’s extraordinary TEKI COMETH. It triumphed among a strong line-up this year and is, as one jury member commented, “a film that begins as spare, Ozu-esque drama about the lonely days of a retired French literature professor but segues into something more dreamlike and disturbing as the protagonist’s inner fears, desires and regrets come to the fore. Similar to the David Lynch masterpiece “Mulholland Drive,” this masterfully scripted multilayered film rewards repeat viewings without ever completely giving up its essential mysteries. And Nagatsuka Kyozo’s outstanding performance as the professor ranges from the darkly comic to the starkly dramatic while making his dilemma feel both intensely personal and movingly universal. ” Congratulations and we wish the film every success in this year’s Japanese Academy Prize race.
Also roundly praised by our judges and earning the SPECIAL MENTION AWARD was Masakazu Kaneko’s stunning RIVER RETURNS. Our judges unanimously agreed the film receive special attention with one judge saying of the film: “an elliptical fable, Masakazu Kaneko’s gorgeously lensed fairy tale is a poignant and timely reminder of the responsibility we owe to nature along with the ever presence of a seemingly distant past. Time too is an endless river in which ancient hurts can be healed and the injustices of another era overcome.”
The KOBAYASHI AUDIENCE CHOICE AWARD is presented to the film chosen as the festival favorite by audiences based on ballots completed at the end of each screening. This year’s winner is Susan Stricker’s THE VOW FROM HIROSHIMA, an intimate and moving portrait of Setsuko Thurlow, the passionate anti-nuclear arms activitist and survivor of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. We were honoured to have Setsuko Thurlow in attendance along with director Susan Strickler, and producer and fellow documentary subject Mitchie Takeuchi. The screening was followed by a fascinating panel discussion featuring celebrated broadcast journalist Mary Ito as moderator.
The JCCC will resume monthly screenings in the Kobayashi Hall in July with the TorontoJFF’s Summer Showcase Screening of SEPPUKU: THE SUN GOES DOWN with the director and cast in attendance. Please watch our newsletter or the JCCC website for more information.