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'Green' film festival opens in Tokyo
2008-10-19
TOKYO (AFP) - The Tokyo International Film Festival opened on Saturday with an environmental theme as filmmakers from around the world greeted Japanese movie fans on a ceremonial "green carpet." Stars attending the festival include director John Woo and actor Tony Leung, both from Hong Kong, who came for the festival's opening film "Red Cliff." Hollywood actress Julianne Moore also appeared for the epidemic thriller "Blindness" with her Japanese co-star Yoshino Kimura. Among other participants in the opening was Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso. Fifteen films, widely ranging in theme and style, will screen in competition for the Tokyo Sakura Grand Prix. There are two Japanese films, "Echo of Silence" directed by actor Atsuro Watabe and "School Days with a Pig" by Tetsu Maeda, and two Chinese works, "Claustrophobia" directed by Ivy Ho and "Super Typhoon" by Feng Xiaoning. Other works in competition include an Iranian love story, an Italian domestic drama and a French suspense film. Academy Award-winning American actor Jon Voight will head the board of judges for the films, all of which will be screened for the first time in Asia. The Sakura Grand Prix will be announced on October 26. Now in its 21st edition, the Tokyo International Film Festival, or TIFF, has picked up a theme of the environment. All films are screened with electricity generated by wind energy, with a symbolic "green carpet" replacing the red carpet. Films to be screened in the "natural TIFF" environmental section include "Blue Symphony," about late legendary diver Jacques Mayol, and "Ashes from the Sky," a Spanish comedy about an anti-pollution campaign. The Tokyo International Film Festival has aspired to be the premier festival in Asia for international films with the same prestige as Cannes, Venice or Berlin. But TIFF has faced tough competition from the film festivals in Bangkok and Busan, South Korea. Tokyo International Film Festival
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