The 5th Annual Tokyo Food Lovers Film Festival / 第５回東京ごはん映画祭

The 5th Annual Tokyo Food Lovers Film Festival (第５回東京ごはん映画祭)

http://tokyogohan.com/

 A festival that brings together “delicious films” and “delicious food”.

おいしい映画」と「おいしいごはん」を真ん中に、みんなで繋がる映画祭

Dates: October 10^th – 24^th, 2014

2014年10月10日(金)～10月24日(金)

Locations: Omotesando Hills and the Image Forum Theatre (Shibuya)

10月10日(金)〜13日(月) 表参道ヒルズ 本館B3F スペース オー

10月11日(土)～24日(金) シアター・イメージフォーラム(渋谷)

The Tokyo Gohan Film Festival is back for its fifth year.  “Gohan” is the Japanese word for “meal”.  In the festival notes, the organizers point out that the prefix “Go-” in front of the word for “meal” (“han”) demonstrates respect and love for the food that they eat.  It is with this desire to share their passion for food that the festival was created.  With Washoku (traditional Japanese cuisine) being added to UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage List in 2013 and Tokyo being named Michelin’s Gourmet Capital of the World for the past seven years, Tokyo is the ideal place for such an event. 

This unique film festival is a celebration of food and film.  Each year, the festival allows foodie film fans to enjoy some of the dishes served up in memorable cinematic dining scenes.  As in previous years, the Tokyo Gohan Film Festival will be presenting a wide range of films from foodie classics like Yasujirō Ozu’s The Flavour of Green Tea over Rice (1952) and Gabriel Axel’s Babette’s Feast (1987) to contemporary favourites like Ken Loach’s The Angels’ Share (2012), Aki Kaurismäki’s Drifting Clouds (1996), and Wong Karwai’s In the Mood for Love (2000).  There is also a selection of documentary films.

Some of the directors and actors are already familiar to the Food Lovers’ Festival audiences.  Glasses director Miwa Nishikawa’s films are famous for their use of food, and films styled by her frequent collaborator Nami Iijima make regular appearances at the festival.  Marianne Sägebrecht makes an appearance in her recent film Omamamia (2012), but she is most famous for her role in Percy Adlon’s Bagdad Café (1987), which played at the festival last year.  Bob Giraldi’s Dinner Rush (2000) starring Danny Aiello and the docs eatrip (2009) by Yuri Nomura and El Bulli: Cooking in Progress (2011) by Gereon Wetzel are back by popular demand. 

This year, the Tokyo Gohan Film Festival announced an official partnership with the San Sebasti án International Film Festival.  A jury from the Tokyo Gohan Film Festival will award a Culinary Cinema Award at this month’s festival (19-24 September).  The contest Culinary Zinema: Film and Gastronomy was originally created in collaboration with the Berlin International Film Festival and the Basque Culinary Centre “to unite cinema, gastronomy and activities related to food in education, science and agriculture.”  Like the Tokyo Gohan Film Fesitval, this section of the San Sebastián festival brings gastronomy-related films together with themed dinners. The award consists of a prize of €10,000 and an Asian premiere of the winning film at the Tokyo Gohan Film Festival. The festival hopes that “this partnership will create a meaningful meeting point for the world’s great food cultures and traditions, and lead towards the future.”

Babette’s Feast 『バベットの晩餐会』

Babettes gæstebud, Gabriel Axel, Denmark, 1987

Feature film, drama

Dish: turtle soup and cailles en sarcophage (quail and foie gras in puff pastry)

Learn more about these dishes in an archival New York Times article from 1988.  Molly O’Neill recreated cailles en sarcophage for the The New York Times and J. Bryan Lowder has written an engaging piece on his attempt at recreated the dish for Slate.

Inheritance 『オリンダのリストランテ』

Herencia, Paula Hernández, Argentina, 2001

Feature film, drama, the Japanese title directly translates as “Olinda’s Restaurant”

Dish: Argentinian cuisine

Drifting Clouds  『浮き雲』

Kauas pilvet karkaavat, Aki Kaurismäki, Finland, 1996

Feature film, drama

Dish: White fish in a Meunière sauce

Omamamia 『バチカンで逢いましょう』

aka “Oma in Roma”, Tomy Wigand, Germany, 2012

Feature film, comedy

Dish: Kaiserschmarrn 

The Angels’ Share 『天使の分け前』

Ken Loach, Scotland, 2012

Feature film, comedy-drama

Dish: Scotch whisky

Scotch whisky is an obvious partner for this film, but I really think that Irn-Bru should have been contacted to introduce the Japanese to the joys of Scotland’s most popular soda pop.

Glasses 『めがね』

Miwa Nishikawa, Japan, 2007

Feature film, drama

Dish:  Japanese breakfast, kakigōri (shaved ice)

One of my favourite Japanese films of the Noughties, read my review to learn more.

The Flavour of Green Tea over Rice 『お茶漬の味』

Yasujirō Ozu, Japan, 1952

Feature film, family drama

Dish: Ochazuke (green tea over rice)

In the Mood for Love 『花様年華』

Wong Karwai, Hong Kong, 2000

Feature film, drama

Dish: food cart style zongzi (chimaki in Japanese) and noodles

Eat Drink Man Woman 『恋人たちの食卓』

Ang Lee, Taiwan, 1994

Feature film, drama

Dish: Taiwanese cuisine, particularly soups

Dinner Rush  『ディナーラッシュ』

Bob Giraldi, USA, 2000

Feature film, drama

Dish: pasta

Check out this review with recipes by Kristin Eddy.

Wings of Desire『ベルリン・天使の詩』

Der Himmel über Berlin, Wim Wenders, West Germany / France, 1987

Feature film, drama

Dish: Coffee

The Dinner『星降る夜のリストランテ』

La cena, Ettore Scola, Italy, 1998

Feature film, drama/comedy

Dish: Italian cuisine

Cooking Up Dreams

De ollas y sueños, Ernesto Caellos, Brazil/Peru, 2009

Documentary

Dish: Ceviche (fresh Peruvian fish in a marinade) with Pisco Sour (a Peruvian cocktail)

eatrip  『eatrip』

Yuri Nomura, Japan, 2009

Documentary

Dish: Roast Chicken in a Green and Lemon Sauce / in a Strawberry and Sayori (fish) Marinade

El Bulli: Cooking in Progress  『エル・ブリの秘密 世界一予約のとれないレストラン』

Gereon Wetzel, GERMANY, 2011)

Documentary

Dish: El Bulli Creative Cuisine

Go to the festival's official website to learn more about this year's events and guests.

Decorations (デコレーションズ, 2014)

In her graduate work for Tokyo University of the Arts’ animation programme, Mari Miyazawa (宮澤真理) once again brings a bakery to life.  As in her earlier film Twins in the Bakery (ツインズ イン ベーカリー, 2013), applies her knowledge of food art and food styling to create an imaginative stop motion animation using real food.

It is after-hours in a kitchen and a piping bag begins to ice a multi-layered cake all by itself.  A Baumkuchen – whose layers resemble the rings of a tree trunk – indicates that it is feeling left out as three slices vie for the piping bag’s attention.  The piping bag complies by putting florets onto them like heads.  After a dissolve, the slices of Baumkuchen evolve further into little figures that resemble girls in dresses.  Soon, they are helping the piping bag decorate cupcakes and the large cake.  Some troublesome spiders made of oreo cookies spice up the action a bit.

A new figure is made entirely of pink and white icing and resembles a little girl dressed like a ballerina.  She not only enthusiastically decorates but also dances.  Other figures join in and get a little bit carried away.  The decorations of the cakes and themselves crescendo along with the music the piping bag has to step in and change the tempo.    

A fanciful little tale, Miyazawa has stepped up the complexity and emotional content of her work from Twins in the Bakery.  This film relies only on image and music (no narration as in her earlier work) and it is all the better for it.  It is great to see an animator bringing together her love of food to animation.

Check out Mari Miyazawa’s bento tips on her official YouTube channel.

Follow her blog on food art at http://www.e-obento.com/

Follow her on twitter: @Mari_Miyazawa

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2014

Twins in the Bakery (ツインズ イン ベーカリー, 2013)

Mari Miyazawa (宮澤真理) is unique among recent Geidai animation graduates because in addition to being an animator she is a food stylist.  Long-time readers will know that I love a film that features food in innovative ways – check out my post Nami Iijima: Food Stylist Extraordinaire for a taste – so I was immediately drawn to Miyazawa’s work at Koji Yamamura’s presentation of Tokyo University of the Arts at ITFS 2014.

A former graphic designer in the computer games industry, Miyazawa uses real food and stop motion to bring a bakery to life in her first year short for the Geidai programme.  The twins in Twins in the Bakery (ツインズ イン ベーカリー, 2013) are a pair of sausage tips cope to life, complete with jaunty little hats made of cheese.   They live in a house made of white slices of bread, waffles, and oreo cookies.  The shrubs in their garden are pieces of broccoli.  The bakery is their playground while the baker's away.  The twins bounce over bread rolls, jousting with plastic swords, one of them turns a potato chip into a cowboy hat and plays with a lasso while the other pretends to be a DJ with slices of ham standing in for records.  Soon the twins are “waking up” the bread rolls and other baked goods in the bakery, with everyday treats transforming into animal shapes with the help of deli meat, chocolate, and other common sandwich and dessert toppings.   

The twins’ adventures are done as a series of vignettes in which Miyazawa exploits the ability of animation to make the ordinary extraordinary.   On her food blog, Miyazawa specializes in making cute figures out of everyday foods for bento boxes.  With her animation, Miyazawa has brought her wonderful creations to life. My only criticism would be that the voice-over narration in the opening is completely unnecessary.  At Pritt Pärn’s presentation of the Estonian Academy of Arts animation programme at ITFS 2014, he said that he made it a rule that students could not dialogue or a narrator for their films.  I think this is a wise idea, because it really gets students to think about showing rather than telling when using visual media. 

Check out Mari Miyazawa’s bento tips on her official YouTube channel.

Follow her blog on food art at http://www.e-obento.com/

Follow her on twitter: @Mari_Miyazawa

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2014

Reel Cuisine: Blockbuster Dishes from the Silver Screen

The films of Naomi Ogigami (Seagull Diner, Glasses) turned me into a fan of the food stylist Nami Iijima (飯島奈美, b. 1969).  As I wrote in Nami Iijima: Food Stylist Extraordinaire, in addition to her work styling food for great films like Chef of the South Pole and Villon’s Wife, Iijima has made a name for herself in Japan as a celebrity chef.  She has written many wonderful cookbooks such as Breakfast Menu (Asagohan no Kondate) and Life: Iijima Nami’s Homemade Taste (LIFE Nandemonai Hi, Omedetou! Gohan).

I was delighted to discover late last year that Iijima’s recipes have become available in English via the American publisher Vertical – an imprint that I associate with manga.  They publish English translations of Osamu Tezuka’s Black Jack and Buddha.   It turns out that Vertical also translates cookbooks, novels, and other miscellanea. 

Reel Cuisine: Blockbuster Dishes from the Silver Screen is based on Nami Iijima’s column Cinema Shokudo (シネマ食堂) which she wrote for AERA magazine between 2007-9.  Many of the recipes also featured in the Japanese book based on this column and also called Cinema Shokudo (2009).  Both books feature photography by Elina Yamasaki.   

When it first came in the post I was initially disappointed by how slim the volume is – I collect cookbooks and I like them big and bulky and full of lovely illustrations or photographs.  There is no introduction explaining who Iijima is, which clearly confused one reviewer of the cookbook.  This would have been useful as the films that Iijima has worked on have only played at festivals in North America and have not been released there on DVD. 

The first section of the book consists of recipes from films that Iijima worked on.  Each recipe is accompanied by a brief explanation of the context of the food in the film.  At the back of the book, there is some text from Iijima’s “Work Diary” that explain how she works with food and give an idea of the thought process that goes into designing food and settings for the food during film production. 

The rest of the book contains recipes from world and Hollywood cinema.  In them Iijima recreates meals that she has seen in movies.  In her short introduction (which is more like a preface) she writes that her favourite genre of film is the “slice of life” movie.  Her cinematic tastes are varied from quirky independent cinema to classics to popular Japanese and Hollywood fare.  As I associate her with modern Japanese cuisine, it was fascinating to learn that Iijima delights in the challenges of world cuisine from zha jiang mian (Chinese fried noodles in sauce) to pot-au-feu (French beef stew). 

To the North American reader, some of the recipes may seem quite ordinary – scrambled eggs from Misery and sandwiches from The War of the Roses – but one must recall that these recipes were originally written for a Japanese readership who would be more likely to have a bowl of rice with grilled salmon for breakfast and onigiri (rice balls) for a packed lunch.  Those staples of Japanese cooking are also here – with wonderful little notes from the chef.  For example, the recipe for onigiri from Iijima’s first movie Seagull Diner features the little note: “My name, Nami, apparently means ‘delicious’ in Finnish.  Rice balls filled with herring and crayfish were very ‘nami’ indeed.”  (p. 16)

Apart from the lack of introduction to Iijima herself, my only criticism of the book is that it doesn’t include more of Iijima’s commentary on the films and the reasons why she chose a particular dish from each film.  The best recipes are the ones that have this additional text.  For example, the Comics Worth Reading reviewer of this book wondered why Iijima gives us a recipe for fried chicken instead of the titular fried green tomatoes of the popular 1991 film starring Mary Stuart Masterson, Jessica Tandy, Kathy Bates, and Mary-Louise Parker.  Reel Cuisine only gives a mini film synopsis with the recipe.  However, in her AERA column, Iijima explains that due to the lack of commercial availability of green tomatoes in Japan she decided to teach her readers about fried chicken – a staple of the southern United States.  Fried chicken is a popular treat in Japan as well – but the spices used in the recipe would be different. 

Iijima’s recipes are not authentically from the movies she has selected – each one has her own particular take on the dish.  So the fried chicken recipe calls for sake – which I am sure was not on set during the filming of Fried Green Tomatoes.  If you want the original recipe, I advise purchasing the original novel by Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café by Fannie Flagg as it contains recipes (or even the accompanying cookbook).  I recall trying those recipes when the movie came out and failing miserably as I did not have the ingredients or the technique needed.  Iijima has simplified the fried chicken recipe and made it easy for the average home cook.

This book a tribute to food in the movies written by a movie lover and chef.  The recipes have been adapted to North American measuring standards and are written in a clear and concise manner.  There are lots of practical tips and interesting ideas that I would never have thought of myself.  It's a fun little book for cinephiles like me.

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2012

Here is a list of the food/movies included:

Food for Film

Chirashi sushi (Glasses, Naoko Ogigami, Japan, 2007)

Napoli Egg (Handsome Suit, Tsutomu Hanabusa, Japan, 2008)

Chicken Nuggets (Chef of the South Pole, Shūichi Okita, Japan, 2009)

Boiled Tripe (Villon’s Wife, Kichitaro Negishi, Japan, 2009)

Rice Balls (Seagull Diner, Naoko Ogigami, Japan, 2006)

Cinnamon Rolls (Seagull Diner, Naoko Ogigami, Japan, 2006)

Noriben (Nonchan Noriben, Akira Ogata, Japan, 2009)

Travel the World

Fried Chicken (Fried Green Tomatoes, Jon Avnet, USA, 1991)

Hamburgers (Transamerica, Duncan Tucker, USA, 2005)

Hummus (Tuesdays with Morrie, Mick Jackson, USA, 1999)

Norimaki (The Man Without a Past, Aki Kauismäki, Finland, 2002)

Silken Crab with Vegetables (Eat Drink Man Woman, Ang Lee, Taiwan, 1994)

Pot-au-Feu (Overboard, Gary Marshall, USA, 1987)

Mojito (Volver, Pedro Almodóvar, Spain, 2006)

Fish and Chips (Dear Frankie, Shona Auerbach,UK, 2004)

Water Spinach Stir Fry (The Scent of Green Papaya, Tran Anh Hung, Vietnam/France, 1993)

Paella (Blame it on Fidel!, Julie Gavras, France, 2006)

Yakiniku Korean BBQ (Rough Cut, Jang Hoon, South Korea, 2008)

Jeon and Porridge (The King and the Clown, Lee Jun-ik, South Korea, 2005)

Popcorn (Welcome to Dongmakgol, Park Kwang-hyun, South Korea, 2005)

Happy Brunch

Spaghetti with Tomato Sauce (The Godfather Part III, Francis Ford Coppola, USA, 1990)

Ratatouille (Ratatouille, Brad Bird, USA, 2007)

French Toast (Kramer vs. Kramer, Robert Benton, USA, 1979)

Quiche (Waitress, Adrienne Shelly, USA, 2007)

Scrambled Eggs (Misery, Rob Reiner, USA, 1990)

Pancakes (The Notebook, Nick Cassavetes, USA, 2004)

Baked Potatoes (Juno, Jason Reitman, USA, 2007)

Green Salad (Cinema Paradiso, Guiseppe Tonatore, Italy, 1988)

Yakisoba with Clams (The Shoe Fairy, Yun Chan Lee, Taiwan, 2005)

Egg Over Rice (Kabei: Our Mother, Yoji Yamada, Japan, 2008)

Fried Rice (Tampopo, Juzo Itami, Japan, 1985)

Spaghetti Basilico(Mostly Martha, Sandra Nettelbeck, Germany, 2001)

Zha Jiang Mian (Shower, Zhang Yang, China, 1999)

Vegetable Potage (Rinco’s Restaurant, Mai Tominaga, Japan, 2010)

Penne in Cream Sauce (The Unknown Woman, Guiseppe Tornatore, Italy, 2006)

Spaghetti Vongole (The Big Blue, Luc Besson, France, 1988)

Kidney Bean Soup (Red Like the Sky, Cristiano Bortone, Italy, 2006)

Delicious Family Dinners

Risotto (Big Night, Campbell Scott/Stanley Tucci, USA, 1996)

Guacamole (Bridget Jones’s Diary, Sharon Maguire, UK, 2001)

Sautéed Salmon (Life is Beautiful, Roberto Benigni, Italy, 1997)

Loco Moco (Finding Forrester, Gus Van Sant, USA, 2000)

Roasts Chicken (Miracle on 34^th Street, George Seaton, USA, 1947)

Sandwiches (The War of the Roses, Danny DeVito, USA, 1989)

Roast Beef (The World According to Garp, George Roy Hill, USA, 1982)

Macaroni and Cheese (Soul Food, George Tillman, Jr., USA, 1997)

Steak (My Date With Drew, Jon Gunn/Brian Herlinger/Brett Winn, USA, 2004)

Mushroom Dumplings (The Road Home, Zhang Yimou, China, 1999)

Burritos (The Jane Austen Book Club, Robin Swicord, USA, 2007)

Grilled Fish (Paris, Cédric Klapisch, France, 2008)

Samosas (The Namesake, Mia Nair, USA/India, 2006)

Spring Rolls (Happily Ever After, Yvan Attal, France, 2004)

Oden (Tora-san Plays Daddy, Yoji Yamada, Japan, 1987)

Sukiyaki (Always: Sunset on Third Street, Takashi Yamazaki, Japan, 2005)

Curry (All Around Us, Ryosuke Hashiguchi, Japan, 2008)

Corn Fritters and Edamame Rice (Still Walking, Hirokazu Koreeda, Japan, 2008)

Ochazuke (The Flavour of Green Tea over Rice, Yasujiro Ozu, Japan, 1952)

Cinematic Sweets

Apple Pie (The Shawshank Redeption, Frank Darabont, USA, 1994)

Banana Cake (Stanger than Fiction, Marc Forster, USA, 2006)

Chiffon Cake (The Secret Life of Bees, Gina Prince-Blythwood, USA, 2008)

Love Cake (Donkey Skin, Jacques Demy, France, 1970)

Truffles (Chocolat, Lasse Hallström, USA/UK, 2000)

Crème Brûlée (Amélie,Jean-Pierre Jeunet, France, 2001)

Birthday Cake (Kitchen Stories, Bent Hamer, Norway/Sweden, 2003)

Iced Azuki (Glasses, Naoko Ogigami, Japan, 2007)

2nd. Tokyo Food Lovers Film Festival 2011 (第２回東京ごはん映画祭)

2nd. Tokyo Food Lovers Film Festival 2011 
第２回東京ごはん映画祭
October 8 – 23, 2011

My good friend Ushka Wakelin, who teaches cooking lessons in the Tokyo area (see her JP profile at Niki’s Kitchen), recently sent me word that the 2nd annual Food Lovers Film Festival gets underway at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography in Ebisu on October 8th.  

I am a big fan of food themed movies, which have been a growing trend in Japan thanks to the dominance of women cinema-goers there.  My favourite food stylist is Nami Iijima, whom I wrote about earlier this year (see: Nami Iijima: Food Stylist Extraordinaire).  The festival programme features three films that she worked on: Naoko Ogigami's Seagull Diner (2006) and Toilet (2010) and Shūichi Okita's Chef of the South Pole (2009).

The two week event will present a total of 17 Delicious Films for food lovers as well as Yuri Nomura's documentary eatrip. While food is central to the plot in many of the films, like the Ebi Fry in Chef of the South Pole, in others it is simply part of a memorable scene in the film, such as Dustin Hoffman comically making French toast with his son in Kramer vs. Kramer.  The festival hopes that visitors will experience firsthand the connections between people and food through by not only viewing the films, but sharing meals with likeminded movie fans.

In order to make the festival accessible to a wide audience, the festival offers several Special Movie Screenings for Moms. Moms are welcome to bring their children to these screenings. Children can feel free to cry or chat during the screenings without fear of disturbing other patrons. If a Mom brings two Mom friends with her, they will pay a discounted entry fee of 1,000 yen per Mom.

For the visually impaired, the screening site is equipped with audio guidance that can broadcast explanations simultaneously during the movie showing over radio waves. If you bring a FM radio receiver along, you will be able to “watch” and enjoy the movie with the rest in the same theater room. A portion of the sale receipts from the collaboration product, “eatrip picnic bag”, will go to funding for the production cost of audio guidance.

Many of the screening events will be held in partnership with local restaurants and cafes. Eatrip can be viewed while enjoying an Okinawan dinner, Cooking up Dreams with a Peruvian dinner, Dinner Rush with an Italian meal, The Hangover with drinks and dinner, and so on. Go to the website to learn about these and other events including workshops and live music.

Events are subject to change; please consult the official website for screening times and locations.

17 Delicious Films Programme

English language films (with Japanese subtitles)

Bagdad Café (バグダッド・カフェ)

Percy Adlon, GERMANY/USA, 1987

Dinner Rush (ディナーラッシュ)

Bob Giraldi, USA, 2000

Kramer vs. Kramer (クレイマー、クレイマー)

Robert Benton, USA, 1979)

My Blueberry Nights (マイ・ブルーベリー・ナイツ)

Wong Kar Wai, HONG KONG/CHINA/FRANCE, 2007

The Hangover (ハングオーバー! 消えた花ムコと史上最悪の二日酔い)

Todd Phillips, USA, 2009 (screening with dinner event only)

Into the Wild (イントゥ・ザ・ワイルド)

Sean Penn, USA, 2007

Japanese language films (only eatrip has English subtitles)

An Autumn Afternoon (秋刀魚の味/Sanma no Aji)

Yasujiro Ozu, JAPAN, 1962

Seagull Diner (かもめ食堂/Kamome Shokudo)

Naoko Ogigami, JAPAN, 2006

Read Review 

The Chef of the South Pole (南極料理人/Nankyoku Ryorinin)

Shūichi Okita, JAPAN, 2009

Read Review

Still Walking (歩いても 歩いても/Aruitemo aruitemo)

Hirokazu Kore-eda, JAPAN, 2008

Toilet (トイレット)

Naoko Ogigami, JAPAN/CANADA, 2010

Adrift in Tokyo (転々/Ten-Ten)

Satoshi Miki, JAPAN, 2007

Other languages (no English subtitles)

Soul Kitchen (ソウル・キッチン) (German with Japanese subtitles)

Fatih Akin, GERMANY, 2009

The Road Home (初恋のきた道) (Mandarin with Japanese subtitles)

Zhang Yimou, CHINA/USA, 2000

Breathless (息もできない) (Korean with Japanese subtitles)

Jang Ik-Joon, SOUTH KOREA, 2009

The Japanese Premier of

Cooking Up Dreams (Spanish with Japanese subtitles)

Ernesto Cabellos, PERU, documentary, 2011

A Special Presentation of eatrip

eatrip

Yuri Nomura, JAPAN, documentary, 2009

http://www.eatripfilm.com/

* All screenings of eatrip are with English subtitles.

Featured food from the film: stewed whole chicken with lemon and green sauce

One of the festival highlights is the contemporary Japanese food culture documentary eatrip in which director Yuri Nomura traces the relationship between food, people, the environment and spirituality.  This documentary takes the audience on a journey throughout Japan looking at how life can be led optimally through the daily ritual of eating. From the Tsukiji fish market to an Okinawan farm, the film offers poignant interviews with intriguing personalities. Featuring interviews with Nichiji Sakai, head monk of the Ikegami Honmonji temple; Kanji Takahashi, a distributor of Japanese soup stock (bonito broth); Naoko Morioka, an Okinawan leading a self-sustainable lifestyle; So-oku Sen a tea ceremony master and descendant of famed Sen No Rikyu; and Yayako Uchida, a musician and writer who recites poems about food. eatrip culminates with a passionate meal cooked by the director herself for actor Tadanobu Asano and singer UA and a handful of other eclectic guests.

October 8 – 23, 2011

Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography

Yebisu Garden Place

Advance Admission: 1 ticket 1,300yen / 3 tickets 3,600yen

Admission at the Door: 1,500yen

http://tokyogohan.com/filmfestival/

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