The Tokyo Film Festival appoints Wim Wenders as president of the 2023 jury

German film legend Wim Wenders will head the competition jury for this year’s Tokyo International Film Festival, organizers announced on Monday.

Wenders is currently riding high and his longstanding artistic ties to Japan are more evident than ever. The director’s latest feature film, perfect days, which recently premiered in competition at Cannes and was widely hailed as his best fiction film in recent years. An intimate character study following a middle-aged Tokyo man who has reduced his life to a routine of service and small pleasures, won the Best Actor award at Cannes for its inimitable lead, veteran Japanese character actor Koji Yakusho . The Hollywood ReporterThe critic of summed up the film as simply “ineffably adorable”.

Over a 55-year career in film, Wenders, now 77, has won many of the highest honors in world cinema, including the Golden Lion for The state of things at the Venice Film Festival (1982); the Palme d’Or at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival for Paris, Texas; and Best Director for Wings of Desire in Cannes in 1987. He is also nominated three times for an Oscar in the best documentary category, for Buena Vista Social Club (1999), Pina (2011) e The salt of the earth (2014). Wenders also presented another successful feature film at Cannes this year, Anselma portrait of the great German artist Anselm Kiefer.

Wender’s ties to Japan date back at least to 1985, when he created the acclaimed
documentary Tokyo ga, a homage to classic Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu, whom Wenders has long declared his cinematic hero. This year marks the 120th anniversary of Ozu’s birth. To mark the occasion, the Tokyo Film Festival will hold a special section of screenings, which will be hosted by Wenders.

Wenders first screened a film at the Tokyo Film Festival in 1985 with his Palme d’Or winner Paris, Texas appearing in the Festival section of the event’s festivals. He returned in 1991 with Until the end of the worldand later served as juror chairman of the Young Cinema Competition event in 1993, alongside jurors including producer Claudie Ossard and novelist Paul Auster.

“I am thrilled to be returning to the Tokyo International Film Festival,” Wenders said in a statement. “I have only the best memories of my first judging – and judging members from that time are still in touch, still calling themselves ‘Claudie-san‘ and ‘Paul-san‘ and ‘Wim-san.’ Because this festival, which takes place 60 years after the death and therefore 120 years after the birthday of Ozu, my declared teacher, makes the occasion very special for me.