First Cannes, then Tokyo: star director Wim Wenders (78) opens the Tokyo International Film Festival in October with his new film “Perfect Days”. The work premiered in May at the Cannes Film Festival. “I’m very happy to be back at the Tokyo Film Festival,” Wenders said, according to film magazine Variety. “I am beyond proud to present ‘Perfect Days’ as the opening film.”
The film, which consists of four short stories, is about the life of the toilet cleaner Hirayama (played by the Japanese star actor Koji Yakusho (67)). He seems content with his simple life, but then has a series of unexpected encounters that lead to a better understanding of his past.
Wenders announced last year that he wanted to make a film about Tokyo’s public toilets designed by star architects. For him, these symbolized “world-famous hospitality”: “A toilet is a place where everyone is equal, there are no rich and poor, no old and young, everyone is part of humanity,” he said at the time.
The 78-year-old had already shot a film in Japan in 1985: In “Tokyo-Ga” he told how he followed in the footsteps of the Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu (1903-1963), whom he considered his “master”. revered. Wim Wenders now: “The fact that the Tokyo Film Festival is now taking place 60 years after Ozu’s death and 120 years after his birth makes the event something very special for me.”
The German filmmaker will not only present the opening film in Tokyo: he is also the chairman of the jury this year.
