# Camera Japan Festival

Camera Japan Festival is a multidisciplinary Japanese arts and culture festival held each year in the Netherlands, in Rotterdam and Amsterdam. Part of the movie programme goes 'on tour' the rest of the year at various cinemas across the country.
The mission of Camera Japan is to show the rich diversity of Japanese culture through film and other art forms. Camera Japan wants to be a meeting place between cultures, a festival with room for both high and low culture, for young and old, and for all nationalities.

## History

Since its inception in 2006 Camera Japan Festival presents an eclectic overview of contemporary Japanese cinema, ranging from popular anime to (experimental) arthouse and documentaries. Besides film there is ample attention for a wide range of aspects of Japanese culture, with musical performances in various locations, art installations, debates, tastings, workshops and much more.

## Activities

The extensive film programme consists of numerous short films, feature films and documentaries, most of which are only shown in the Netherlands during the Camera Japan Festival. Besides recent films, the festival also shows older classic and rare movies as part of a special retrospective. In the past few years the festival presented retrospectives on Japanese film noir, the soft-erotic pink movie and of the work of Kôji Wakamatsu en Shinji Somai.
CAMERA JAPAN Festival also organises a wide range of activities around its movie programme and the yearly main theme. Several concerts of Japanese bands and DJs, lectures, debates and workshops are organised. Fixed components are the interventions, unannounced performances ranging from traditional to experimental music and dance performances, the movie brunch and the CAMERA JAPAN Kid's Day, on which the youngest visitors get acquainted with the richness of Japanese culture and cuisine through traditional games and other activities.

## Audience Award

Each year at the end of the festival the feature-length film with the highest audience appreciation is announced.
| Year | Film | Director |
| 2022 | Tokyo Kurds | HYUGA Fumiari |
| 2021 | Ushiku | Ian Thomas Ash [ja] |
| 2020 | ON-GAKU: Our Sound | Kenji Iwaisawa [ja] |
| 2019 | Fly Me to the Saitama | Takeuchi Hideki [ja] |
| 2018 | One Cut of the Dead | Shinichiro Ueda [ja] |
| 2017 | A Silent Voice | Naoko Yamada |
| 2016 | Flying Colors | Nobuhiro Doi |
| 2015 | Kakekomi | Masato Harada |
| 2014 | Uzumasa Limelight [ja] | Ken Ochiai [ja] |
| 2013 | Tokyo Family | Yōji Yamada |
| 2012 | Kamome Diner | Naoko Ogigami |
| 2011 | Bunny Drop | Hiroyuki Tanaka |
| 2010 | Wig [ja] | Renpei Tsukamoto [ja] |
| 2009 | Osaka Hamlet [ja] | Fujirô Mitsuishi [ja] |
| 2008 | Fine, Totally Fine | Yosuke Fujita [ja] |
| 2007 | Tekkon Kinkreet | Michael Arias |
| 2006 | Hibi: Days of Fire [ja] | Banmei Takahashi |

## Partners

Main location of the festival in Rotterdam is film and music theater LantarenVenster. The festival also works together with cultural institutions such as WORM (Rotterdam) and Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam.
In Amsterdam, Camera Japan has screened films and organised musical performances in Filmtheater Kriterion, Melkweg and EYE Film Institute Netherlands. Currently, the main location in Amsterdam is LAB111.