The Dutch Camera Japan Festival 2018 Reveals Its Great Line-up

September is almost upon us, and here in The Netherlands it doesn't just mean the arrival of Autumn and a downturn in the weather, but also that the Camera Japan Festival will soon start. Beginning in Rotterdam and moving a week later to Amsterdam for its last few days, it's a Dutch festival celebrating Japanese culture in general and Japanese films in particular.

For me, it's one of my three yearly festival highlights, and it provides me with a chance to see anime in a cinema, join lectures on Japanese subjects, and enjoy some great food and drink.

You can check out this year's complete line-up of films and events on the Camera Japan website (here), but I've already spotted some highlights! There's a selection of anime-shorts by Yamamura Koji, there's a midnight screening of One-Cut of the Dead (hailed by many as the funniest film this year), a retrospective honoring Nakagawa Nobuo (which includes Jigoku), Sato Shinsuke's brilliant Inuyashiki, Sono sion's Tokyo Vampire Hotel, Yamazaki Takashi's Destiny, The Tale of Kamakura...

Outside of the screenings, sake-tasting and matcha-making are also back this year, and there are several expositions regarding this year's theme: the supernatural, and specifically the Yokai, Japanese spirits...

Check out the programme, and feel free to recommend me something!


(Camera Japan runs from the 26th of September till the 7th of October.)