Kyoto Film Festival to Debut Never-Before-Seen Ozu Short
This year's Kyoto International Film Festival will host the World Premiere of a newly restored version of The Straightforward Boy, a 1929 short directed by master filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu. Available only in fragments before now, this early work from the director of Tokyo Story and Good Morning will screen in a new 19-minute version at this year's event, which runs from 13-16 October.
The Straighforward Boy - which apparently ran 38 minutes on first release, but was long-thought lost - will play alongside Ozu's 1931 feature The Lady and the Beard, together with a Short Comedy Selection of long-lost works and a Toy Film Selection of silent shorts commissioned for toy projectors in the director's early days as a filmmaker.
Now in its third edition, this year's KIFF will open with the Japanese premiere of Steven Okazaki's documentary Mifune: The Last Samurai, celebrating the life and career of actor Toshiro Mifune, and including new interviews with Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg, among others.
This year's festival also features a 7-film celebration of Charlie Chaplin, including The Kid, The Gold Rush, Modern Times and more, as well as a host of other documentaries, TV movies and shorts.
