Award Winners of the 26th Nippon Connection Film Festival

Sold out screenings, numerous guests from Japan, and a new audience record 

In its 26th edition, the Japanese Film Festival Nippon Connection set a new record with more than 21,000 visitors throughout six days, thus confirming its status as the most popular film festival in Hesse. Numerous film and culture events at 13 locations were sold out quickly. Due to overwhelming demand, multiple additional screenings were held. Over 200 filmmakers and artists from Japan and other countries attended the festival to have an exchange with the German audience.

At the biggest festival for Japanese film worldwide, a total of seven awards were presented. During the award ceremony on Sunday, June 7, actress Anna Yamada received the Nippon Rising Star Award – an award dedicated to honoring outstanding emerging talent in the Japanese film industry and supporting their careers. Since her debut in 2018, Anna Yamada has delivered impressive performances in numerous Japanese TV dramas and cinema productions. Her appearances in this year’s festival program included her role as the protagonist in Yuta Shimotsu’s horror film NEW GROUP, among other films. The Nippon Rising Star Award was presented by KYOCERA Document Solutions Deutschland.

The Nippon Cinema Award went to FUJIKO by Taichi Kimura. Focusing on the hardships of a single mother, the film combines serious topics with optimism and comedy to tell a story about women’s autonomy. The award, endowed with €4,000, was sponsored for the 21st time by Metzler Bank in Frankfurt.

The twelfth Nippon Visions Audience Award went to A Unique Country in Asia by Kenji Yamauchi, a satire in which a housewife not only combines care and sex work in an unusual manner but is also very open about her political views. The prize was sponsored by Japanisches Kultur- und Sprachzentrum in Frankfurt and is endowed with €2,000.

The winner of the Nippon Visions Jury Award was also A Unique Country in Asia. The international Nippon Visions jury, consisting of Barbara Wurm (director of Berlinale Forum), Hayley Scanlon (film critic), and Kei Ishikawa (director), praised the film for its witty and courageous narrative approach, in which humor is chosen as a means to challenge gender roles, political issues, and taboos in Japanese society. Instead of the director, who could not attend the festival, lead actress Ami Chong, who was very moved and whose performance was particularly praised by the jury, received the award trophies. The Nippon Visions Jury Award, which entails a free subtitling for the director’s next film, was sponsored for the 16th time by the Japan Visualmedia Translation Academy (JVTA) from Tokyo. The jury issued two honorable mentions to the dramas Dawn Chorus by Yoshinori Sato and Kiiroiko by Mika Imai.

The Nippon Storytelling Award for the best original script went to Kuninori Yamazaki for Kaneko Fumiko. This jury award, endowed with a prize money of €1,000, was sponsored by the Storymaker Agency for Public Relations for the third time. The historical drama by veteran director Sachi Hamano depicts a political activist’s life in the repressive and militaristic Japan of the 1920s. The director and the script writer, who have been working as a team for 55 years and who both attended the festival, were lauded by the Nippon Visions jury for their complex yet touching approach to the story.

The winner of the Nippon Docs Award was the documentary film Tetsuyo Turned 104, Living on Her Own by Kazuhiro Yamamoto. Over a two-year period, the filmmaker shared tea and stories with widowed yet sprightly Tetsuyo, thus creating a touching portrait of growing old. Director Kazuhiro Yamamoto and producer Sachi Okamoto personally received the award, which was presented for the seventh time and comes with a prize money of €2,000.

The very first Nippon Animation Shorts Award went to the animated documentary short film find me by Akari Maru, who also attended the award ceremony. A three-member jury, consisting of Waltraud Grausgruber (festival director Tricky Women / Tricky Realities Festival), Fabian Driehorst (producer), and Thomas Stellmach (director) lauded the filmmaker’s and the protagonists’ courage to confront dysfunctional mother-daughter-relations and thus give visibility to a relevant social topic. The jury also issued an honorable mention to Masataka Kihara for his film Q. This jury award, sponsored by Wacom, is endowed with €2,000.

The date for the 27th Nippon Connection Film Festival is already set. From May 25 to 30, 2027, Frankfurt am Main will again become the center of Japanese cinema!

Selected films from the thematic focus „Shades of Reality – Between Truth and Fiction“  will be screened throughout the Rhine-Main region in the upcoming months. Dates will be published on the festival website: NipponConnection.com

About the Festival

The Japanese Film Festival Nippon Connection is organized by the approximately 120-member, largely voluntary team of the non-profit association Nippon Connection e.V. It is under the patronage of Hessian State Minister of Higher Education and Research, Science and the Arts Timon Gremmels, Mayor of the City of Frankfurt am Main Mike Josef, and the Consulate General of Japan in Frankfurt am Main. Since its founding in 2000, Nippon Connection has become the world’s largest platform for Japanese cinema and the most popular film festival in Hesse with around 21,000 visitors in 2026. A campaign to support the festival is running on the online platform betterplace.org.