Japan Japan: A Movie about a Gay Israeli Japanophile

Despite its seemingly patriotic title, Japan Japan is not really about Japan at all—it's the first feature length film by Israeli film director Lior Shamriz, and it's about a soul-searching 19 year old boy in Tel Aviv. ("More than a Middle-Eastern movie about Japan, this movie (is) a film from the middle east that would have preferred to have been Japanese," he writes.)

Imri, the protagonist, longs to go to Japan. His mom thinks he's crazy and his friends keep asking him when he's going as he daydreams about shrines and masturbates to Japanese mass orgies. It's a fun film with snapshot scenes of urban youth life in Israel and nostalgic Japanese music that'll make you wish you were watching kohaku in the 70s.

This film was screened at San Francisco's Frameline LGBT Film Festival last month. I drove by the Castro Theater right before showtime, and the line went all the way down the block.