Camera Japan Festival affirms, year after year, that it is the cathedral of Japanese cinema in the Benelux. With a rich selection of different genres, the programmers serve up a sumptuous cinematic dinner with familiar and newly invented flavours. To aid the prospective spectator chose which flavour he wants to taste, we gladly serve our recommendations as an appetizer.  

Our Recommendations

A Unique Country in Asia (2025) by Kenji Yamauchi

A Unique Country In Asia is a film that fully embraces the political dimension pink film once was known for. Kenji Yamauchi’s film comes to full blossom when one grasps the poetic effectivity of using the politics of sexuality – i.e. the idea that the sexual encounter between two bodies is phallically governed – to expose the problematic consequences of phallic sexuality propping up the political field.

All Greens (2025) by Takashi Koyama

With All Greens, Takashi Koyama affirms the promise he holds and proves why he should be a director to be closely watched. He delivers a coming-into-being narrative that effectively and satisfactorily blends social drama, dark comedy, and musical moments. Yet, Koyama does not merely play with genres nor flavours his narrative with a death-pan sardonic flavour for no reason: he exploits both elements to amplify the delivery of his highly relevant message: find a support for one’s desire in spite of one’s societal environment.    

5 Centimeters Per Second (2025) by Yoshiyuki Okuyama

5 Centimeters Per Second should be considered the fully blossomed fruit of Makoto Shinkai’s influential animated film. Okuyama does not only succeed in translating Shinkai’s visual language into a visual arresting journey that evocatively traces out the aftermath of the encounter, but utilizes the increased running time to thoughtfully elaborate on the effects the encounter sorts on the subject. Okuyama’s film, just like Shinkai’s anti-romance, ultimately asks the spectator to let go of the fantasy of The Sexual Relationship, to let go of the unobtainable fantasy that inhibits and, by emphasizing absence, imprisons him.

AnyMart (2026) by Yusuke Iwasaki

With Anymart, Iwasaki offers audiences a darkly twisted comical horror narrative that does not merely expose the dynamic of repressive societal violence – the brutal erasure of what does not fit the imaginary veil, but also shows how such violence pushes the subject’s death-drive to realize its self-destructive finality. Anymart does not shock with its delivery of violent brutality, but with his ominous message that the Japanese Other, in his capitalistic as well as its patriarchal guise, will refuse that what does not fit: subjectivity/desire – a thing we, following Iwasaki, should protest.

When You Open The Door (2026) by Eriko Katagiri

When You Open The Door is a rare treat that blends fairytales, gothic imagery, and folk religious practices into a compelling and visually arresting exploration of forced self-discovery. Eriko Katagiri proves, moreover, that she is able to play with the grammatical dimension of composing to evocatively stage her themes and ensnare the spectator from start to finish into her narrative. Another fresh voice in Japanese horror arises; long live, J-horror.

At The Lovehotel (2026) by Santa Ikegami

With At The Lovehotel, Santa Ikegami delivers a self-assured debut that does not easily give away its thematical message. The spectator is skilfully led to wander throughout the various narrative corridors of the impossibility of The sexual relationship and come to the realization that our own preoccupation with the fantasy of sexual harmony as what inhibits us in the rugged field of romance.

Fujiko (2026) by Taichi Kimura

Taichi Kimura’s Fujiko offers the spectator an incredibly satisfying feel-good experience about personal freedom, about holding on to one’s desire within a societal field that seeks to suffocate it. Kimura does only stage, via deliciously dramatic moments, how patriarchal discourses curtails and complicates certain individual choices, but also emphasizes how survival within a societal field unable to make space for different versions of woman- and motherhood depends on contingencies: pre-existing connections and encountering feelings of compassion.  

Flames Of A Flower (2025) by Oudai Kojima

Flames of The Flower offers a compelling exploration of the divergent ways subjects deal with trauma and the Other that fails to respond adequately. While Oudai Kojima’s narrative is hopeful – highlighting the importance of social bonds for working-through traumatic experiences, it also shows that the way the Other makes itself present can have disastrous consequences. 

Long Night (2025) by Yui Kusakari

With Long Night, Yui Kusakari delivers a self-assured debut, wielding the filmic frame to stage the alienation of the contemporary subject, the failure of imaginary fictions, and the disruptive effect of avoiding Otherness, one’s own as well as the Otherness of the other subject. Kusakari’s Long Night is a question in a filmic form and ask audiences to explore how we, as society, can answer that what does not fit: subjectivity.  

Sai: Disaster (2026) by Yutari Seki and Kentaro Hirase

With Sai: Disaster, Yutaro Seki and Kentaro Hirase deliver an engaging narrative that does not merely deliver its societal critique in an evocative way, but gently pushes the spectator, through narrative and compositional choices, in the position of what enables the various disasters to happen: the mute and blind Other. While this approach will surely leave some spectators frustrated, those spectators who succeed in engaging with what remains absent within the film will be reaping its thematical rewards and more fully appreciate the way it exposes the duality of threat within the societal field. Sai: Disaster has, in our view, everything to become a cult-phenomenon, so do not sleep on it.