Japanese Film Festival in Florence marks 60 years of ties with Kyoto

Florence will celebrate the 60th anniversary of its sister-city relationship with Kyoto during this year’s Festival of Japanese Cinema in Tuscany, which returns to Cinema La Compagnia from 3 to 6 September.

The third edition of the festival features ten titles, ranging from historic films screened on 16 mm to contemporary features and short films. Admission to all screenings is free. The central theme this year is landscape and the way cinema can portray places and communities in Japan that often remain outside the country’s main tourist routes.

The festival opens at 8.30 p.m. on Thursday, 3 September with Il giardino delle rose (The Rose Garden), a 2025 short film by Luca Liotti created to mark six decades of the Florence-Kyoto partnership.

Set in Florence, the 15-minute film follows a Japanese woman living in the city and a Florentine businessman whose encounter develops through the care of roses. It is the only Italian-language film in the programme and will be shown with Japanese subtitles.

The opening evening will continue with two Japanese short films, Quattro sorelle (Yonin shimai/Four Sisters) by Omori Alysa and Funny by Sakuma Keisuke. The Japanese-language films will be screened with Italian subtitles prepared with the involvement of students from the University for Foreigners of Siena.

Japanese landscapes on screen

Landscape provides the common thread running through the four-day programme. Rather than treating the setting simply as a backdrop, the festival focuses on films in which places help shape stories about individuals, communities and their relationship with their surroundings.

Maria Gioia Vienna, a lecturer in Japanese language and literature at the University for Foreigners of Siena and the festival’s scientific and organisational director, said the programme aims to draw attention to smaller towns, peripheral areas and harder-to-reach places that risk being marginalised as economic activity becomes increasingly concentrated elsewhere.

The festival therefore uses cinema to explore memories and perspectives associated with a less familiar Japan, beyond many of the destinations associated with mass tourism.

A day dedicated to 16 mm film

Friday, 4 September will be devoted to the festival’s 16 mm, che passione! section, which returns after previous editions and is intended to support the preservation and continued screening of films in their original format.

Three feature films from the archive of the Japanese Cultural Institute in Rome will be shown on 16 mm, beginning at 11 a.m. with Kaneto Shindō’s The Naked Island (Hadaka no shima, 1960). The programme also includes The Village and The Crying Wind.

Organisers say the initiative also draws attention to the increasing difficulties surrounding film projection, including maintenance costs and the declining availability of specialised technical skills. The two previous editions of the festival each recorded more than 1,200 attendances.

Saturday’s programme includes three more feature films: Where I Belong, Swing Me Again and Sunset Sunrise.

The festival concludes on Sunday, 6 September with an 11 a.m. screening of Mori, The Artist’s Habitat (Mori no iru basho), Shūichi Okita’s 2018 film inspired by painter Morikazu Kumagai. The story imagines a day in the life of the reclusive artist, with his garden becoming a central element of the film.

Florence and Japan

The 2026 festival is also part of events marking 160 years of diplomatic relations between Italy and Japan and is held under the patronage of the Embassy of Japan in Italy.

The Festival of Japanese Cinema in Tuscany is organised as a public-engagement project by the Department of Humanities at the University for Foreigners of Siena, together with the Japanese Cultural Institute in Rome and in collaboration with Fondazione Sistema Toscana and other partners.

Practical information

Dates: 3–6 September 2026
Venue: Cinema La Compagnia, Via Cavour 50/R, Florence
Admission: Free for all festival screenings
Opening: Thursday, 3 September at 8.30 p.m.
Closing screening: Sunday, 6 September at 11 a.m.

The programme runs from morning screenings to early-evening events over the four days.

The full programme and any updates are available from Cinema La Compagnia’s official festival page.

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