The UK's biggest celebration of Japanese cinema, the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme 2025, is heading to Birmingham at the Midlands Arts Centre from 14th March to 20th March and in Coventry at the Warwick Arts Centre from 8th February to 6th March 2025.

Japanese film and TV is back in news after Shogun's big wins at the Golden Globes, and this year's programme features a big variety of films, from comedy to sci-fi and thought provoking drama.

Highlight of the upcoming Birmingham and Coventry events include:

Let’s Go Karaoke! (Dir. Nobuhiro Yamashita, 2024, 107 min, UK Premiere)

This yakuza film with a difference is a heartfelt and hilarious comedy which sees junior high school choir leader Satomi’s ordinary teenage life turned upside down when a yakuza lieutenant desperately asks him to provide singing lessons in the leadup to his gang’s high‐stakes annual karaoke contest!

Penalty Loop (2023, 99 min)

Young man Jun (Ryuya Wakaba, Gantz series) attempts to kill the man who murdered his lover only to find himself trapped in a time loop of the same day, exacting his revenge over and over again...

Bushido (2024, 129 min, UK Premiere)

Vicious emotional conflicts of honour and revenge collide in an unmissable new twist on the samurai genre.

In the Wake (Dir. Takahisa Zeze, 2021, 134 min, UK Premiere)

The movies sees a sinister serial murder case unfold in Sendai nine years after the city was ravaged by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami and stars Kore-eda regular Hiroshi Abe (Still Walking; After The Storm) and Takeru Satoh (Rurouni Kenshin series)

Day and Night (Dir. Michihito Fujii, 2019, 134 min, UK Premiere)

Shōgun star Shinnosuke Abe stars in a powerful thriller that unflinchingly tackles a wide range of social issues, from whistle‐blowing and suicide to orphanhood and crime.

For the full programme and further information about events at each location check out the links below: 

https://www.jpf-film.org.uk/venues/mac-birmingham

https://www.jpf-film.org.uk/venues/warwick-arts-centre