9th Tokyo International Film FestivalSeptember27-October6,1996

This year marked the centenary of the first showing in Kobe of Edison's "Kinetoscope". This memorial year prompted many important screenings for "Nippon Cinema Classics". The French film "The Danger Line", featuring the husband and wife combination of Sessue Hayakawa and Tsuruko Aoki, was shown for the first time in seventy years with the cooperation of the Centre National de la Cinematographie of France. Also shown were "Chushingura," "The Casebook of Umon: His Third Achievement", and "The Unrivalled Hero", which had all been partially preserved on 9.5 mm film and restored on 35 mm film.

Among other programs of the festival was a focus on director Abolfazl Jalili, who presented "Det, Means Girl" at the previous year's Venice Film Festival as well as an "Film Director TAKESHI KITANO International Symposium & Retrospective", the director of "Kids Return," which was shown at Cannes earlier in the year. This year marked the first time that subtitles developed by Saburo Hori of the "Atheéneée Francais Cultural Center" were used. These subtitles are still used on some films screened at TIFF.