19 Jun – It's a bumper season for Japanese film at the cinemas, with a total of nine Japanese movies making the screens starting today. Eight of them feature as part of the Japanese Film Festival's lineup, with Oscar-winning drama "Departures" headlining. The movie was played at the festival's launch recently to a full house of ambassadors, industry bigwigs, celebrities and filmmakers alike, including Malaysia's Yasmin Ahmad, who is understood to have seen the 2009 Best Foreign Picture a total of six times. Yasmin, an obvious fan of the movie, uploaded the trailer on her blog early in March and lauded it as "an achingly beautiful film... must do everything you can to watch it as soon as possible." "Departures" will open at GSC International Screens under general release after its run in the festival.