Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on May 2010

Takadanobaba cinema Waseda Shochiku (1-5-16 Takadanobaba; www.wasedashochiku.co.jp) will screen four films by late Polish director Krzysztof Kieślowski from May 15-28. The Double Life of Véronique (1991; pictured) is a creepy tale of two nearly identical women leading parallel lives in Krakow and Paris. The films in The Three Colors Trilogy (1993-1994) are loosely based on the motto of the director’s adopted country of France: “Liberté, égalité, fraternité.” The trilogy, considered Kieślowski’s masterpiece, was the last work he completed before his death in 1996.

Shin-Bungeiza in Ikebukuro (3F, 1-43-5 Higashi-Ikebukuro; www.shin-bungeiza.com) will hold an all-night showing of films by Austrian émigré director Fritz Lang on May 8. Although Lang made nearly 50 films in a career spanning five decades, this screening focuses on his wartime work. Hangmen Also Die! (1943) tells the story of a Nazi official’s assassination by the Resistance, while Cloak and Dagger (1946) is a thriller about a university professor embroiled in an espionage mission to Switzerland.

From May 8-21, Shibuya’s Theater N (24-4 Sakuragaoka; www.theater-n.com) will screen the world’s first retrospective of films by cult director Shinya Tsukamoto, who became an international sensation with his 1989 work Tetsuo: The Iron Man. A low-budget, 16mm film that defined the cyberpunk genre, Tetsuo wowed audiences with frantic black-and-white photography, deafening electronic music, and homemade special effects. The story has to do with a salaryman who gradually (and graphically) morphs into an android. The director will be present for Q&A sessions on May 8 and 21.

Unless noted, Japanese films screen without English subtitles. Non-English language films are shown with Japanese subtitles only.