Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on May 2010

PHOTO ©GIL ALKABETZ

Asagaya theater Laputa (2-12-21 Asagaya-kita, Suginami-ku; www.laputa-jp.com) is hosting the Laputa Animation Festival 2010 through June 5. The program includes lesser-known animated features and shorts from Europe, all shown with Japanese subtitles. Entries range from a selection of shorts by German animator Gil Alkabetz (like 2007’s The Sunny Day, pictured) to the latest in experimental work from Estonia.

Buoyed by a string of successful TV shows, historical topics are experiencing something of a boom. Shin-Bungeiza in Ikebukuro (3F, 1-43-5 Higashi-Ikebukuro Toshima-ku; www.shin-bungeiza.com) is catering to the trend with a series of films on key moments in Japanese history, May 25-June 5. Highlights include the 1965 biopic Tokugawa Ieyasu by Daisuke Ito, a master of the jidaigeki genre, and The Assasination of Sakamoto Ryoma (1974), on the leader of a movement to overthrow the shogunate in the 1860s

Shimo-Takaido Cinema (3-27-26 Matsubara, Setagaya-ku; www.shimotakaidocinema.com) continues a retrospective of the films of François Truffaut through June 11. Truffaut worked as a critic before moving behind the camera to direct his era-defining debut film The 400 Blows in 1959, and he remains an iconic figure 25 years after his death. The 400 Blows gets a screening along with Jules Et Jim (1961) and others.