Tokyo International Film Festival opens

The 19th Tokyo International Film Festival started Saturday with "Flags of Our Fathers" as the opening movie in Roppongi Hills. Around 300 actors, directors and others attended the opening ceremony.

A total of 15 films from around the world have been entered in the competition for the Tokyo Sakura Grand Prix and other awards, including three Chinese movies "The Exam", "Dog Bite Dog" and " Thirteen Princess Trees."

The winners of the awards will be selected by an international jury headed by French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet, and the results will be announced on the last day.

Some 300 films will be shown during the festival through Oct. 29 at cinemas such as those in Bunkamura in Shibuya and other locations in the Japanese capital, according to the organizers of the event.

A popular part of the festival is Winds of Asia, which features over 30 movies from Asian countries including China, South Korea, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, and others, among which Chinese films "Crazy Stone", "The Postmodern Life of My Aunt", "Young & Clueless" and others will be shown.

The festival also looks back to classic Japanese Samurai films produced from 1928-1962, including "The Forty-seven Loyal Samurai", "The Life and Times of Ichi the Masseur" and others.

To commemorate the late director Shohei Imamura who died in May 2006, "The Ballad of Narayama" and "Warm Water under a Red Bridge" and three others of his classic works will also be shown. Imamura won two awards at the Cannes International Film Festival for "The Eel" and "The Ballad of Narayama."

Source: Xinhua