Photo/Illutration Director Yoko Yamanaka, third from left, receives an award from the International Federation of Film Critics at the Cannes Film Festival in France on May 25. (Noriki Ishitobi)

The 77th Cannes Film Festival was a chance for Japan to show it is up there with the best of them.

By the time the event wrapped up on May 25, there was no doubt in most people’s minds that Japanese cinema remains a force to be reckoned with.

In addition to screening films, the festival serves as a forum for filmmakers to interact with each other.

Actress Megumi hosted the Japan Night party to help promote Japanese cinema internationally, attracting filmmakers from home and abroad.

Former Toei Co. producer Muneyuki Kii held a news conference for his new company K2 Pictures Inc., which was also attended by directors Takashi Miike and Miwa Nishikawa.

He announced that K2 will set up an international fund to improve production conditions in the Japanese film industry.

There was also a presentation of “A New Dawn,” an animation by director and Japanese-style painter Yoshitoshi Shinomiya.

Japanese filmmakers, actors and their movies had a significant presence this year in Cannes.

The festival’s official poster featured a scene from Japanese maestro Akira Kurosawa’s “Rhapsody in August.”

During the awards ceremony held on the final day, Koji Yakusho, who won the Best Actor Award at last year’s festival, said in his speech: “Films connect the future and the past. They nurture hearts that can feel the pain of others.”

Director Hirokazu Kore-eda, who served as one of the jury members, read out the title of the Grand Prix winner as he mumbled: “Oh, I’m nervous.”

That same day, news broke that director Yoko Yamanaka had received an award from the International Federation of Film Critics for her “Desert of Namibia.”

Yamanaka, who was in Paris at the time, took a train and made a hurried trip back to Cannes.

“I still rely on my senses (to make movies),” she said, adding that she is still striving to improve her filmmaking skills.

The secretariat of the festival’s Directors’ Fortnight program invited 180 children for the official screening of “Ghost Cat Anzu,” an animation film jointly produced by Japan and France and directed by Yoko Kuno and Nobuhiro Yamashita. Excited cheers erupted at the venue.

Animation director Koji Yamamura’s “Extremely Short” was also screened in the same program.

The main visual of the program featured an illustration exclusively drawn for the occasion by director Takeshi Kitano.

Hiroshi Okuyama’s “My Sunshine” received loud applause during its official screening in the Un Certain Regard section.

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