Mumbai, Jan 13 (IANS): The fifth edition of the Japanese Film Festival (JFF) will take the virtual route as it will be held online. The Japan Foundation New Delhi made the announcement on Thursday.

The two-week festival, which will celebrate the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Japan and India, will screen 20 globally popular Japanese movies of varied genres and styles starting from February 14.

The theme that defines the festival's curation is 'Journey' and 20 films have been carefully selected to represent the several aspects of this theme.

Commenting on the announcement, Koji Sato, Director General, Japan Foundation, New Delhi said, "The popularity of Japanese content has been distinctly growing in the Indian landscape which has been further fuelled by an increase in online content consumption in the current scenario."

"It was a difficult decision to make but keeping fans' safety utmost, the virtual platform will help us reach a wider audience base. We are confident the festival will be successful and bigger with the online platform and our dear audience will be able to experience the same magic and energy like ever before", he added.

The Japanese Film Festival 2022 film catalogue includes films like 'It's a Summer Film', 'Mio's Cookbook', 'Masked Ward', 'Under the Open Sky', 'Awake', 'Aristocrats', 'Time of Eve', 'Ito', 'Patema Inverted', 'Sumodo - The Successors of Samurai', 'The God of Ramen', 'Rashomon', 'The Floating Castle', 'Happy Flight', 'Oz Land', 'Until the Break of dawn', 'Her Love Boils Bathwater', 'The Chef of South Polar', 'Bread of Happiness' and 'ReLIFE'.