It remains to be seen exactly how the film timing will be arranged. Back in the 2020 festival, films were only available for one day each, if memory serves. (Or two days? Something like that.)
It looks different to me this time around, though? As if one could watch any of the movies at any time. E.g. for two random movies I picked, when you click on “Viewing reservation” it says:
So both are available from Monday, without indication of any restrictions (during the festival period of course).
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Can’t remember where it was but it said somewhere that when started you have a maximum of 48 hours to watch the film. I’m sure though one could work around that limitation.
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Mostly just trying to eliminate the bottom six from scheduled discussion entirely.
So Im here in Japan, but I can’t watch anything?
Well…
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Alrightly, it’s go time!
And unlike last time, I can actually watch it using Firefox. 
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Anyone else fighting with データベース接続確立エラー?
Wanted to watch one this evening. Really good start I have to say 
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Not me. I watched Bread of Happiness last night. It was very iyashikei. 
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I’m halfway through the book right now and I want to finish reading it (for a change) before watching the movie 
so this will take a bit longer for me I’m afraid.
I watched the Ramen God documentary over lunch (I thought that was a somewhat fitting theme 
) and afterwards I noticed the error, but an hour later or so everything was working again. I guess they are a bit overwhelmed by the demand?
(BTW I just checked and it’s working for me right now 
)
As I said, I watched the Ramen God documentary today. I liked it a lot, it was slow-paced and with lots of beautiful pictures of mountains and ramen and cats ^^ and also the Japanese was not too bad (I accidentally started it without subtitles and when I noticed I was too lazy to get up again and adjust the settings, so I just watched without subtitles 
). Interesting story altogether.
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I will watch one of the movies tomorrow I just can’t decide which one…
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Which ones are you considering? (I also need to make up my mind on what to watch tomorrow…)
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Worked now.
Watched Ozland. Would rate it as solid middle of the road. 5/10 if I have ever seen one. Its a light slice of life? kind of thing.
The language is mostly understandable and no hard dialect or sluring occurs. The 園長 is hardest to understand but everyone else is A o K. Not a good case for using subtitles though. They went with a real rough translation dropping a lot of information. So I watched it without any subs since it was too distracting.
Story wise the pacing is somehow a little off and a lot happens for such a short film. Liked the music, the actors were okay. Cinematography is solid.
Lets see what I will watch tomorrow 
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I’m planning to watch Masked Ward tomorrow night, won’t have time this evening for movies. Since we’re all scattered across time zones, I mean sometime slightly more than 24 hours from when this is posted. 
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I was also planning to watch that one! It’s labelled “Thriller” and I was already wondering what exactly they mean here… Could you maybe report back whether it is a scary/shocker movie* or just one with high tension? (Asking for a friend 
)
(*) as in, for example, one can hear the murderer walk around the house at night, and we’re waiting for them to find their way in, or something.
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I’m interested in most of them but I will probably watch Relife, Time of Eve or the sumo movie.
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I know exactly what you mean, haha. I’ll report back what type of thriller it ends up being. I have my suspicions based on the trailer but maybe it will surprise me
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Thanks, appreciated!
I have the same problem 
The sumo movie also sounds very interesting.
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[Masked Ward] From a short description, it’s not a shocker movie, but a kind of action thriller, with criminals and so on. But it could be very high tension.
You can read the short IMDB description if you want, seems like that’s what you’d find out in the first few minutes of the movie.
Didn’t seem very interesting to me personally, except if you’re into that kind of movie.
I’ve started watching Aristocrats and like it quite a bit so far - I’d say it’s drama. You might learn about Japanese society, women’s life paths, traditional and more modern societal views, etc.
I’ll probably write more in a spoiler section when I’m finished.
Other choices I found interesting judging from a short description:
Bread of Happiness (Feelgood)
Her Love Boils Bathwater (Drama, emotional)
Ito (Shamizen meets Maid Cafe)
The Chef of South Polar (“The ultimate 単身赴任 (work abroad) experience”)
Bonus:
Awake (If you’re interested in Shogi = Japanese Chess, like me ^^)
It’s a Summer Film! (comedy? amateur film making)
Also, Patema Inverted and especially Eve of Jikan are very good sci-fi anime films from what I remember, watched them many years ago.
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I saw that at the actual JFF a few years back, and enjoyed it quite a bit. You should watch.
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