Tokyo joins the major festivals: promotion to class A for Japanese cinema

The Tokyo International Film Festival is changing status. Starting in 2026 the Japanese event has been classified as a category A festival under the new accreditation process of FIAPF, the international federation that regulates the calendar of major global film events. A recognition that places Tokyo alongside Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Locarno and San Sebastián, after years in which the Japanese festival occupied a secondary position in the international hierarchy.

The 39th edition will run from October 26 to November 5 in the Yurakucho-Marunouchi-Ginza area, in the heart of Tokyo. The program, announced on October 1, numbers 204 films from 112 countries: 83 Japanese titles and 35 world premieres. Forty-seven films are directed or co-directed by women, a figure the festival points to as part of a broader path toward openness.

The opening is entrusted to a Japanese musical film, ‘Sukiyaki’ by Zeze Takahisa, which tells the story behind the famous pop song sung by Kyu Sakamoto. The closing instead goes to ‘Colony’ by South Korean director Yeon Sang-ho, a choice that confirms the festival’s attention to regional cinema beyond national borders.

Alongside the promotion in rank, the festival is introducing three structural initiatives. The first is a section called Nippon Cinema Now, which will award a prize for best film and a special jury prize, judged by a mixed jury of Japanese and international members: a space designed to give systematic visibility to domestic production within a framework of global judgment. The second is Crosscut Asia+, developed in collaboration with the Japan Foundation and dedicated to Southeast Asian cinema, an area often underrepresented at major general-interest festivals. The third is the Kashiko Kawakita Award, established to honor women in film, named after the historic figure of twentieth-century Japanese film importation and distribution.

The festival will also present the Kurosawa Akira Award, named after the director of ‘Rashomon’ and ‘Seven Samurai’, to directors O Mipo and Mohammad Rasoulof. The presence of Rasoulof, an Iranian filmmaker known for his conflicts with his country’s censorship, adds a dimension to the recognition that goes beyond strictly artistic merit.

The jump in category is not a bureaucratic detail. Class A festivals enjoy an exclusivity clause on competing world premieres, a status that has historically concentrated the contractual power of Cannes, Berlin and Venice in the selection of the titles most sought after by international production companies. Tokyo’s entry into this group redraws, at least in part, the map of the places where world cinema chooses to show itself for the first time.

It should be noted that the news comes from a single source — the Tokyo International Film Festival itself, via its official website and related press coverage — and that at present there is no independent confirmation of the criteria applied by FIAPF in granting the new status. The festival describes the goal of the new sections as strengthening the international reach of Japanese cinema and training new talent in collaboration with the rest of Asia.

The event will close its doors on November 5, after eleven days of screenings spread across commercial theaters and exhibition spaces in central Tokyo.