The UK’s biggest celebration of Japanese cinema, the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme 2025, comes to Birmingham at the Midlands Arts Centre, 14 March – 20 March.

Let’s Go Karaoke! (Dir. Nobuhiro Yamashita, 2024, 107 min, UK Premiere) a yakuza film with a difference, this heartfelt and hilarious comedy which sees junior high school choir leader Satomi’s ordinary teenage life turned upside down when yakuza lieutenant desperately asks him to provide singing lessons in the leadup to his gang’s high‐stakes annual karaoke contest.

Penalty Loop (2023, 99 min), has a young man Jun (Ryuya Wakaba, Gantz series) killing the man who murdered his lover, only to find himself trapped in a time loop of the same day, exacting his revenge over and over again…

Rude to Love (Dir. Yukihiro Morigaki, 2024, 105 min, UK Premiere) follows hard‐working, well‐dressed and caring housewife Momoko (Noriko Eguchi, My Girlfriend is a Serial Killer) as she grows frustrated by her mother‐in‐law’s intrusions, her untidy neighbours, and her husband’s indifference, and her final slide into madness on discovery of his affair.

What Happened to Our Nest Egg!? (2021, 115 min, UK Premiere) – director Tetsu Maeda (Do Unto Others, A Banana? At This Time of Night?) shines his comic light on the economic issues around retirement. Brought to life by a fantastic ensemble cast including Yuki Amami, voice of animated favourites including Ponyo and Mary and the Witch’s Flower, genre legend Sho Aikawa (Dead or Alive series) and veteran actors Mitsuko Kusabue (The Devil’s Island) and Sandayu Dokumamushi (Ultraman series).