The 39th Tokyo International Film Festival, running October 26 through November 4, is adding three new pieces to its programme this year. Two are competitive prizes. One is a tribute that took its first recipient by surprise.

That recipient is Hata Sahoko, a Tokyo-born film critic who spent decades moving between Japan and France as a journalist and acquisitions executive. She's credited with bringing Jacques Tati's "Mon Oncle" to Japanese audiences, followed by Jean-Luc Godard's "Breathless" and René Clément's "Purple Noon." She's also written several books, including the 2012 autobiographical novel "Kage no Bubun," for which she won the Japan Film Pen Club Award.

A prize named for Madame Kawakita

The new Kashiko Kawakita Award, set up by the Kawakita Memorial Film Institute, honours women advancing film culture in Japan and abroad. It's named after Kawakita Kashiko, known as Madame Kawakita, who introduced European cinema to Japan before and after World War II and helped lay the groundwork for what became the National Film Archive of Japan. A committee of women decides who gets it, and this year that's Sakano Yuka of the Kawakita institute, Toho-Towa CEO Yamasaki Toshi and Yomiuri Shimbun senior writer Onda Yasuko.

Hata says she turned the honour down at first. She changed her mind, according to Variety, remembering something Madame Kawakita once told her directly. "As women, there are so many moments where we must endure, aren't there?" Hata recalled. "It is precisely because I felt a compelling desire to pass this story on that I resolved to accept the award." The presentation happens as part of TIFF's Women's Empowerment section.

Two new competitive slots for Japanese film

The festival's Nippon Cinema Now section is getting its own Best Film prize and a Special Jury Prize, judged by a mix of Japanese and international industry figures. Festival director Hisamatsu Takeo framed it as a push to get emerging Japanese talent noticed overseas, telling reporters the section exists to "empower them to advance to the global stage."

Crosscut Asia comes back, rebranded

TIFF is also reviving its old Crosscut Asia strand, which ran from 2014 to 2019, under a new name: Crosscut Asia+. Built with the Japan Foundation, the section pairs a Japanese programmer with a Southeast Asian one each year around a shared theme. The inaugural theme is Side by Side, curated by Jakarta-based programmer and visual artist Raslene and Ueda Masayuki of the Tokyo venue Waseda Shochiku, with University of Michigan professor emeritus Markus Nornes advising.

Six films make up that first slate. Rafael Manuel's "Filipiñana," Kamila Andini's "Four Seasons in Java" and Polen Ly's "Becoming Human" are all still doing the festival circuit rounds. Alongside them sit two archival picks, Bachtiar Siagian's 1957 Indonesian film "Turang" and Hafiz Rancajale's "Behind the Flickering Light: The Archive," plus Daniel Hui's "Small Hours of the Night" from Singapore. Panel discussions will run alongside the screenings.

Whether any of this reshuffles who actually wins in Tokyo this year is the thing to watch once the lineup and jury names land closer to opening night. TIFFCOM, the festival's industry market, runs October 28 to 30.