Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on December 2010

BIM Distribuzione

Bunkamura’s Le Cinema (2-24-1 Dogenzaka, Shibuya-ku; www.bunkamura.co.jp) will screen three films by English filmmaker Ken Loach, December 11-24. Loach is known for dark, social realist films like Sweet Sixteen (2002), about a Scottish teenager hoping to start life afresh as his birthday approaches, and It’s a Free World…(2007; pictured), in which a working class woman sets up her own business. Loach’s Looking for Eric (2009)—notable for being his first film with a happy ending—will open in late December.

The folks at Shin-Bungeiza in Ikebukuro (3F, 1-43-5 Higashi-Ikebukuro, Toshima-ku; www.shin-bungeiza.com) surveyed audiences about which films from the past decade they would most like to see again on the big screen, and are showing the results December 12-21. Kenji Uchida’s Japanese comedy A Stranger of Mine (2005) received the most votes. Also among the winners are Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino (2009) and Roman Polanski’s The Pianist (2002).

Cinema Vera (1-5 Maruyamacho, Shibuya-ku; www.cinemavera.com) continues its series of classics of silent cinema, December 11-24. The program includes some of the great epics of the era, among them Carl Theodor Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927) and Cecil B. Demille’s biopic of Jesus, The King of Kings (1927). Kevin Mcgue