The Japanese Film Festival comes to Galway this November, co-organised by the Embassy of Japan, access CINEMA and the Ireland Japan Association. The 2009 Festival boasted sell-out screenings in all locations and organisers hopes to satisfy demand by bringing the best new Japanese films to Irish audiences for the third consecutive year.

Highlights in the programme include the genre-bending Fish Story, which is set in five different time periods and incorporates such disparate subjects as punk music, plagiarism, and impending Armageddon. The classroom drama Confessions explores the dire consequence of unchecked bullying, while The Sky Crawlers depicts a world where war has become a company-sponsored reality game.

The Irish Film Board, together with the Galway Film Fleadh, will host an evening of short films at the arthouse screen at the Eye Cinema on Friday 24 September, as part of Galway Culture Night 2010. Featuring a number of Irish produced award-winning shorts, the screenings will run from 7pm to 8pm, and will be followed by a short discussion with Fran Keaveney of the IFB and Felim MacDermott of the Galway Film Fleadh.

The screenings will include ‘Bye Bye Now’, an amusing 15-minute celebration of the phone box in Ireland, ‘Moore St Masala’, a Bollywood- style tale of love between shop clerk Baba and the sexy estate agent across the street.

Garrett (Justin Long) has always had a problem with commitment and understanding what women want. He seems to be doing everything right until he learns the hard way that he cannot speak the female language.

When his girlfriend dumps him, his friends try to brighten up his spirits by taking him to a bar. He meets Erin (Drew Barrymore) playing a game and ends up buying her a beer, then winning at bar trivia, and having breakfast with her the next morning.