What's new in Odeon's this week : Thursday 5th November 2020.

The 33rd annual Tokyo International Film Festival is currently running from 31st October though until 9th November. The official website reads that given the current circumstances with the pandemic and the limitations it has necessitated, this year's Tokyo International Film Festival may take on a slightly different character than in previous years. We would most like to emphasise the power of art and culture, especially film to enrich our daily lives even as we weather this pandemic. We hope you will come to the festival to enjoy cinema on the big screen with quality sound, and that the experience will provide a renewed sense of hope for the future. Needless to say, Japan is not the only country suffering from the effects of the pandemic. The Tokyo International Film Festival therefore wishes to further international solidarity through cinema.

The main sections of this years films being showcased are Tokyo Premier 2020, Special Screenings, Japan Now, World Focus, Japanese Animation, Japanese Classics, and Youth.

The Tokyo Premier 2020 section focuses on World and Asian Premieres showcasing thirty-two films from across the globe, by both veterans and emerging Directors. Maintaining the usual balance among regions and the selection criteria of TIFF’s three main competition sections, this special lineup will allow audiences to enjoy, on an equal footing, a diversity of films from international and Japanese Directors in all stages of their careers. Among those films featured in this section are : 

* 'Underdog' - drama and action from Japan, by Director Masaharu Take - World Premier screening. A man sticks with boxing while dwelling in the humble glories of his past. His life hits rock bottom but he tries to crawl out of the pit and shine again.
* 'After Love' - drama from England, France and Saudi Arabia, by Director Aleem Khan - Asian Premier. Mary, lost in grief after her husband's death, discovers his secret and crosses the English Channel.
* 'Alaya' - drama from China, by Director Shi Meng - World Premier. A man becomes a hermit after losing his son. An assaulted woman closes her mind. A girl was born illegitimately. As time passes by, their fates begin to move.
* 'Apples' - drama from Greece, by Director Christos Nikou - Asian Premier showing. An amnesiac man gets medical treatment but is left without memories.
* 'Ashes on a Road Trip' - drama comedy from India, by Director Mangesh Joshi - World Premier. A family patriarch dies. He leaves an envelope for the family, not to be opened until his ashes are scattered in his favorite places. His family takes a trip to fulfil his last wish.
* 'The Bike Thief' - drama from England and Romania, by Director Matt Chambers - World Premier screening. A Romanian immigrant in London feeds his family through delivery work. As their life gets tougher, his motorbike is stolen.
* 'Eternally Younger Than Those Idiots' - drama from Japan, by Director Ryohei Yoshino - World Premier. Horigai spends her boring days waiting to graduate from college. As she hangs out with friends, she begins to realise the violence and sorrow behind their ordinary lives.
* 'Fan Girl' - drama from the Philippines, by Director Antoinette Jadaone - World Premier. A starstruck girl sneaks into an Actor's house and sees a horrifying truth.
* 'First Job' - drama from Japan, by Director Syunsuke Koyama - World Premier. A story of two men in an ethical maze. Yamashita accepts an offer from Anzai to photograph the corpse of his baby. As the job proceeds, reality hits them in different ways.

* 'Forgiveness' - drama from Turkey, by Director Cem Ozay - World Premier. A boy, unloved by his strict father, accidentally fires at his little brother. Will the bereaved family, with father in shock, silent mother and boy in despair, find hope?
* 'The Last Bath' - drama from Portugal and France, by Director David Bonneville - World Premier. In a sun-drenched remote village, a nun takes care of her lonely nephew. As they grow attached to each other, the aunt feels conflicted.
* 'Moral Order' - drama from Portugal, by Director Mario Barroso - Asian Premier. Based on the true story of the women who fought against the male-dominated upper class in the early 20th century.
* 'Mr. Suzuki - A Man in God's Country' - Sci-Fi fantasy from Japan, by Director Omoi Sasaki - World Premier screening. In a city where unmarried people are drafted to solve the declining birthrate, 44-year-old unmarried Yoshiko tries to find a marriage partner in order to escape from recruitment.
* 'No Choice' - drama from Iran, by Director Reza Dormishian - World Premier. A 16-year-old homeless girl repeatedly works as a surrogate mother for money. A human rights attorney tries to rescue her, but inevitably faces difficulties.
* 'The Old Town Girls' - drama from China, by Director Shen Yu - World Premier. A high school girl living with her father and stepmother is visited by her biological mother, who left her soon after birth. They gradually reconcile, but the mother has a heavy debt.

* 'Possessor' - Sci-Fi action fantasy from Canada and the UK, by Director Brandon Cronenberg - Asian Premier. A story about the battle between an assassin and the man she hijacks and remotely controls to serve as an executioner.
* 'Sasaki in My Mind' - drama from Japan, by Director Takuya Uchiyama - World Premier. The story of a would-beAactor, his larger-than-life classmate and their friends all seeking to unfold their past and present.
* 'Sweat' - drama from Poland and Sweden, by Director Magnus von Horn - Asian Premier. A charismatic fitness instructor attracts attention on social media, but her loneliness grows as the emotions of a woman seeking true love and an exit from falsity begin to unravel.
* 'That Was Life' - drama from Spain, by Director David Martin de los Santos - World Premier. Maria's stable, retired life drastically changes when the condition of a young patient sharing a hospital room abruptly worsens.
* 'TiTi' - drama from Iran, by Director Ida Panahendeh - World Premier. Hospitalised elite physicist reaches out to a Roma janitor woman.

For the complete line-up of films being showcased at this years Tokyo International Film Festival, plus plenty more news, views and happenings, you can visit the official website at : https://2020.tiff-jp.net/en/

And so this week we have three latest release new films coming to your local Odeon. We kick off the week with a historical biopic about a famed Polish born French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. We then turn to an Australian doco about the foundations of the feminist movement back in Brisbane in the mid-'60's and how this charted a path for where feminism is at today. And we wrap up the week with a sort of concert film played to a deserted Alexandra Palace by one of Australia's pre-eminent singer, songwriter, composers and authors in a truly unique event. 

Whatever your taste in big screen film entertainment is this week - be it any of the three latest release new movies as Previewed below, or those doing the rounds currently on general release or as Reviewed and Previewed in previous Blog Posts here at Odeon Online, you are most welcome to share your movie going thoughts, opinions and observations by leaving your relevant, succinct and appropriate views in the Comments section below this or any other Post. We'd love to hear from you, and in the meantime, enjoy your big screen Odeon outing during the coming week.

'RADIOACTIVE' (Rated M) - this British biographical film is Directed by Marjane Satrapi, the Iranian born French graphic novelist, cartoonist, illustrator, children's book author and film maker whose previous feature films outings take in 2007's 'Persepolis', 2011's 'Chicken with Plums' and 2014's 'The Voices'. This film is based on the 2010's graphic novel 'Radioactive : Marie & Pierre Curie - A Tale of Love and Fallout' by Lauren Redniss, and saw its World Premier screening as the Closing Night film at TIFF back in September 2019, before its scheduled release due in March this year, which was subsequently cancelled due to COVID-19 and released digitally in mid-June. The film has garnered mixed or average Reviews so far and taken just over US$2M at the Box Office.

Following the death of her beloved husband Pierre Curie (Sam Riley), Marie Curie's (Rosamund Pike) commitment to science remains strong as she tries to explain previously unknown radioactive elements. However, it soon becomes terrifyingly evident that her work could lead to applications in medicine that could save thousands of lives, or applications in warfare that could destroy them by the billions. Also starring Anya Taylor-Joy and Aneurin Barnard.

'BRAZEN HUSSIES' (Rated M) - is an Australian documentary film that recounts how a daring and diverse group of women joined forces to defy the status quo, demand equality and create profound social change - contributing to one of the greatest social movements of the 20th Century. The film interweaves freshly uncovered archival footage, personal photographs, memorabilia and lively accounts from the bold women who reignited the feminist movement in Australia between 1965 and 1975, at times at great personal cost. Charting how from humble beginnings in Brisbane in 1965 women began organising around issues such as equal pay, reproductive rights, affordable childcare, and the prevention of family violence and rape. As the story unfolds, these issues go from being dismissed as the outrageous demands of a few 'brazen hussies’ to becoming crucial elements on the platforms of Australia’s major political parties, and how the issues demanded by these women fifty years ago have created a path for where feminism finds itself today. Directed and written for the screen by Catherine Dwyer.

'IDIOT PRAYER : NICK CAVE ALONE AT ALEXANDRA PALACE' (Rated M) - this film has Nick Cave playing his songs at the piano in a rarely seen stripped back form, from early Bad Seeds and Grinderman, right through to the most recent seventeenth studio Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds album, 'Ghosteen'. Recorded in June 2020 and initially imagined as an online only event, fans will now be able to watch the film in cinemas as an extended cut featuring four unseen performances. Recorded as the UK slowly emerged from its first stages of lockdown and conceived as a reaction to the confinement and isolation of the preceding months, Idiot Prayer is a souvenir from a strange and precarious moment in history. The performance was filmed by award winning Cinematographer Robbie Ryan ('The Favourite', 'Marriage Story', 'American Honey') in Alexandra Palace’s stunning West Hall in London.

With three new release films this week to tempt you out to your local Odeon, remember to share your movie going thoughts with your other like minded cinephile friends afterwards here at Odeon Online. In the meantime, I'll see you sometime somewhere in the week ahead, at your local Odeon.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-