Greetings

Kyoto HISTORICA International Film Festival is the only film festival in Japan with history as its focus. By selecting not only Japanese films but also films from across the globe, we are able to learn about both the universality of history films/“jidaigeki” as well as the uniqueness brought to us by different countries.
This year’s HISTORICA Special program features the 4K restoration of “Orochi”, a masterpiece starring Bando Tsumasaburo. The century-old imagery vividly coming back to life is sure to stir your soul.
For the HISTORICA Focus program, we selected six films under the theme “Anti-Cathartic”, including master filmmaker Tadashi Imai’s “Revenge”. We believe these will be able to show you different potentials that jidaigeki films have.
The HISTORICA World program brings to you four films including “Magellan” on which 5 countries collaborated. All four films are new history films that mark their Japan premiere in HISTORICA.

Kyoto HISTORICA International Film Festival Committee
Chairman Yuji Kojima (Toei Company, Ltd.)

Preview the NEXT 100 years, right here.

Do people look for stories in films? Cathartic stories that purify our emotions are so far removed from the daily realities that we live in. What films can truly replicate might be limited to fragments of life such as realistic feels or facial expressions that pierce our memories.
This year, HISTORICA brings to you “prickly” films that sting the hearts of those who watch them. While the stories are set in the past, the emotions present in the films are so real that they make you want to either jump onto them or cower and run away.
100 years ago, the film star Tsumasaburo Bando – an actor with an exceptional “prickliness” in comparison to other actors before him – opened a studio in Uzumasa. Since then, Uzumasa became a cluster of 13 studios and the driving force behind Japanese cinema. Now, what will the next 100 years look like? HISTORICA will foreshadow the future.

Ken Takahashi
Program Director
Kyoto HISTORICA International Film Festival Committee

Event overview

Name: The 17th Kyoto HISTORICA International Film Festival (KHIFF)
Dates: December 2nd – 7th, 2025
Venues: The Museum of Kyoto

Sponsored by: Kyoto HISTORICA International Film Festival Committee(Kyoto Prefectural Government, The Museum of Kyoto, Toei Company, Ltd. Kyoto Movie Studios, Shochiku Studio Co., Ltd.,
Toei Kyoto Studio Co., Ltd., Iwamoto Metal Co., Ltd., Directors Univ,inc., Ritsumeikan University, Skeleton Crew Studio), General Incorporated Association Kyoto Historica
Co-hosted by: KYOTO CMEX Executive Committee
With the Association of: Kyoto Crossmedia Promotion Agency / Italian Cultural Institute in Osaka /
La Biennale di Venezia-Biennale College Cinema / Cineteca di Bologna / Tokyo International Film Festival
　　　　 Sponsors：THAN Co., Ltd. / Gyoza and Dote-ni Usagi-ya Presented Under the auspices of: Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan, Inc. /
Foreign Film Importer-Distributors Association of Japan / Motion Picture and Television Engineering Society of Japan Inc.
Supported by: Japan Arts Council