Against the beautiful backdrop of Tallinn

This was my first time in Tallinn, and I absolutely fell head-over-heals with the city. It must be one of Europe’s best kept secrets, and I hesitate to sing its praises too loudly lest it become totally overwhelmed by tourists. It’s already suffering to some extent from the usual curse of jeering drunken idiots on organised stag parties that Britain seems to have a predilection for inflicting on Eastern Europe, something I’d already just encountered in Wroclaw the month before. Fortunately these are largely confined to the overpriced tourist and titty bars in the Old Town area, and it’s not difficult to wander off the beaten track and find quieter spaces to explore.

Cultural rivals - the Stalker Film Festival was going on simultaneously in the 2011 European Capital of Culture where parts of the film were shot

Tallinn is Europe’s 2011 City of Culture, and there were a whole host of events going on over the weekend that threatened to overshadow EVA. One of these was the Stalker film festival celebrating Tarkovsky’s classic Soviet sci-fi, parts of which were shot in the city, and featuring a number of examples of films of the type that it has now become acceptable to refer to as “slow cinema” – Bela Tarr, Sergei Paradjanov, you know the type. Luckily, it didn’t seem to draw too many, if any, potential viewers away from our festival, which was amazingly well-attended and well-received. Nothing is too far apart in Tallinn, it seems, and on one of the mornings before the screenings I managed to wander down to the film’s locations, and onwards down to the dockland/beach area, along with my old friend Yoshihiro Ito, whose Vortex and Others surreal shorts programme we screened. The last time we’d met was about 18 months ago in Tokyo, and before that, he was there with his films and disarming grin at the first ever Shinsedai, one of the first ever events I documented on this website in this post from 2009.

Drunken yobs in Tallinn: Saturday night ended in tequila, with Yolanda, Tim Grabham and Yoshihiro Ito, and me staying sensibly behind the camera

Another guest from rather less further afield (i.e. London) was Tim Grabham, one of the directors of the beautiful documentary KanZeOn, accompanied by his charming companion Yolanda. While this film was included in the programme for this year’s Shinsedai, this was the first time Tim had actually been present at one of its screenings, which was effectively the European premiere. It went well, incredibly well… as did Yoshihiro’s films, and that night, we celebrated with an extended tequila session before winding up down at the port area again, at an open air gig by local punk outfit Chungin & The Strap-On Faggots, one of the bands at the festival’s opening night punk concert, along with J.M.K.E., local legends with a fanbase that stretches as far as Finland. Apparently punk is to the Estonians what rockerbilly is to the Finns, the ultimate anti-authoritarian musical stance during the twilight of the Soviet era and still going strong – the fact that I managed to catch Chungin & The Strap-On Faggots twice during my brief stay merely highlighted this fact. You can read Tim’s account of his screening and beyond on the KanZeon website.

Again, I’ll end by saying a huge thanks to our wonderful hosts in Tallinn, Helen and Piret. It’s looking like we’re going to do the event again next year, so I can’t wait to head back, who knows… maybe even before the next fest…

Best laid plans, and all that, but I had been hoping to give readers of this website the heads-up on the festival some time beforehand, but somehow, what with my being wrapped up in New Horizons in Wroclaw, Poland, at the end of last month and numerous other things since, the best I could manage was a few tweets. Frustrating for those who might have wished to combine a trip to this beautiful city with some cutting edge films from Japan, but I know the team on the ground here, Helen Merila and Piret Mägi, have been pretty active in spreading the news locally, so I’ve no fears that local audiences won’t come.

The gorgeous facade of Tallinn's Kinomaja, host to the first ever East via Asia

The festival is taking place in the Kinomaja on Tallinn’s Uus tn 3 – one of the most beautiful cinemas I’ve ever shown anything in. If the programme looks familiar, that’s because I was invited to curate by Helen after she saw the line-up for last year’s Zipangu Fest in London. Most of the titles we’re screening here have screened either in Toronto as part of Shinsedai, or at Zipangu Fest, and those that haven’t played in London yet might well give you a bit of a clue as to what to expect for the second Zipangu Fest, which I can now reveal will be happening 17-24 November at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) – only a bit of a clue however, because we have a whole lot more planned which I personally can’t wait to announce.

I’ll be joined out here tomorrow by Yoshihiro Ito, director of the marvellously surreal Vortex and Others shorts programme which we screened at the first ever Shinsedai back in 2009 and Tim Grabham, one of the two directors of the amazing new documentary on the role of sound in Japanese Buddhism, KanZeOn. Before then, I’ve got an evening of Estonian punk to savour for the Opening Night party at the Kinomaja!

Anyway, I’ll repeat it down here for those who might not have been paying attention, this year Zipangu Fest will take place 17-24 November at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London. If you’re interested in signing up for our press releases or getting on the general mailing list, visit Zipangu Fest’s press section. You can also find us on Facebook and Twitter. Hope to see you in November!

Neil Cantwell and Tim Grabham's remarkable new documentary Kanzeon

There’s another great line-up at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre this July, high points of which include Catcher On the Shore, the directorial debut of 14-year-old Okinawan boy, Ryugo Nakamura (yes, you did read that correctly: 14-year-old!!!), a rare screening of Torajiro Saito’s 1935 Shochiku Kamada comedy Kid’s Commotion starring “the Japanese Charlie Chaplin” Shigeru Ogura and presented with a live Foley sound effects accompaniment and demonstration by Goto Koyama (this is going to be amazing!), and the world premiere of Kanzeon, a stunning new British documentary about Buddhism and music (actually it’s about a whole lot more than that, but it’s sort of difficult to explain – check out the official website). Oh yes, and there’s some other old favourites we screened in London as part of last year’s Zipangu Fest, including the CALF animation programme and Mean-eater Mountain.

Catcher on the Shore, by 14-year-old filmmaking prodigy Ryugo Nakamura

We’re also closing the festival with Yuya Ishii’s Sawako Decides, one of the titles that did the rounds of the UK as part of the Japan Foundation UK’s touring programme earlier this year. If you didn’t catch it in Britain, or if you want to see it again, you’ll be happy to hear that it’s been picked up for distribution byThird Window Films, and will be out in theatres from 8 July, with a DVD to follow. Anyway, I’m not going to go into too much detail about the programme here, other than to cut and paste some of the highlights from Chris’ page, but suffice it to say, its another goodie for Torontonians, so if you’re in the city at the end of July, don’t miss…

I unfortunately won’t be at Shinsedai this year due to scheduling conflicts with another very special film event that is occurring on the other side of the world (well, almost…) in Poland, which I’ll do my utmost to shed some light on before the week is out.

In the meantime, here’s the lowdown on this year’s Shinsedai:

OPENING NIGHT FILM: Hospitalité (dir. Koji Fukuda, 2010)

A sly, humorous and insightful satire of contemporary a Japanese family and the secrets they keep from each other that begins as an homage to the classic domestic dramas of Yasujiro Ozu, but ends up in the comic territory of Tampopo director Juzo Itami.

Sly satire from Koji Fukuda, Hospitalité

HORROR FEATURE: Shirome (dir. Koji Shiraishi, 2010)

Koji Shiraishi, director of “Occult” and the controversial “Grotesque”, revitalizes the J-Horror genre with a mockumentary that combines the low-budget scares of The Blair Witch Project and American Idol instant stardom into an entirely unique and chilling experience.

Blair Witch Project meets The X-Factor, in Koji Shiraishi's Shirome

CENTERPIECE SCREENING: Wandering Home (dir. Yoichi Higashi, 2010)

Tadanobu Asano gives a career defining performance as real-life photojournalist Yutaka Kamoshida as he struggles to overcome alcoholism. Far from being a journey into the underbelly of addiction “Wandering Home” is a life-affirming drama filled with love, gentle humour and reconciliation.

Tadanobu Asano stars in Wandering Home

FAMILY FEATURE: Azemichi Road (dir. Fumie Nishikawa, 2009)

“Azemichi Road” takes the classic underdog genre and gives it new life. Yuki, a young deaf girl, takes a journey from silence to acceptance through her involvement in an amateur dance troupe. Film-maker Fumie Nishikawa sets her feel-good kids film in the gorgeous landscapes of Japan’s countryside.

Fun for all the family, Azemichi Road

SILENT CLASSIC: Kid Commotion (dir. Torajiro Saito, 1935)

The Shinsedai Cinema Festival is very proud to present a special screening of Torajiro Saito’s “Kid Commotion”, starring Japan’s answer to Charlie Chaplin Shigeru Ogura as a harried father, with the accompaniment of live sound effects provided by foley artist Goro Koyama. Audiences will not only have a chance to see a very rare and very funny silent film, but will have the opportunity to learn about the art of movie sound effects.

Vintage Japanese slapstick, Kid's Commotion, presented with a very unusual accompaniment!

CLOSING NIGHT FILM: Sawako Decides (dir. Yuya Ishii, 2010)

Director Yuya Ishii’s return to the Shinsedai Cinema Festival, “Sawako Decides” is the hilarious story of a young woman (actress Hikari Mistushima) who returns to her home town to care for her ailing father and to straighten out her life after a series of low-paying jobs and less than ideal boyfriends.

Soon to go on theatrical release in the UK, Sawako Decides is Shinsedai's Closing Night Screening

Satoshi Kon's Perfect Blue - I'd never seen anything like it in 1998

The news came through of Satoshi Kon’s sad passing on the Wednesday, with the director of Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, Tokyo Godfathers, Paranoid Agent and Paprika succumbing to pancreatic cancer at the tragically young age of 46. I won’t go over the details of his career here, as there have been a host of obituaries already to him, and so I’ll just refer you to this one on the Guardian website, and for those who wish to know more about his work, I advise you to check out Andrew Osmond’s book-length study Satoshi Kon: The Illusionist. What I will say is that Kon had a considerable impact with his films, pushing the field of animation into entirely new territory. I have often expressed certain misgivings about elements of his work, but I won’t deny he made exceedingly complex films, rich in narrative and visual detail and beautiful to look at. Certainly, I had never seen anything like Perfect Blue when it played at the ICA in 1998, and it was one of the catalysts for my wanting to study Japanese cinema in more detail. The film has a deeper resonance for me also, as my chapter about the film in the anthology The Cinema of Japan and Korea was the first time I ever saw anything I’d written published in book form. Kon was working on The Dream Machine when he died, which looks set to be completed by the staff of Madhouse Studios with whom he made his startling work.

An early picture of Kihachiro Kawamoto: Puppet Master at work in his studio

I never met Kon during his lifetime, but I count myself has truly privileged for even that brief hour or so I spent with Kihachiro Kawamoto interviewing him at his makeshift studios at Tama University of Fine Arts in Hachioji in 2004 when he was working on his magnum opus, The Book of the Dead. As mentioned, Kawamoto passed away on Monday of pneumonia, a day earlier than Kon, although the news only seems to have filtered through today. He was 85 years old.

I first encountered the name Kawamoto in March 2003 at an event held by the Japan Animation Association of which he was then president. As much of an epiphany as it was for me, I soon discovered that his film that screened there, his surreal collage animation The Trip from 1973, was far from typical of his oeuvre. The subtitled DVD of his short films then out in Japan was the clincher for me though. From that moment I knew that more people had to know about these beautiful pieces of stop-motion animation as possible, and so I brought them to the attention of 100 Meter Films, who introduced them to the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic, who held a retrospective of his work in July 2005. It was a symbolic moment, as it marked Kawamoto’s return to the city where he’d studied at the studios of Czech puppet master Jirí Trnka over 40 years before.

Kawamoto's Self-Portrait (1988)

Much later, when I organised the tour of his films across the UK, I noticed quite a few audience members came back for the repeat screenings. We launched the tour at the Watershed in Bristol on March 2008, with a whole weekend dedicated to the art of stop-motion and a panel discussion involving Peter Lord of Aardman Animation and the creator of Morph, David Borthwick of the Bolex Brothers, best known for The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb, and the amazing Barry Purves, a huge fan of Kawamoto’s films and probably the closest equivalent to the Japanese maestro anywhere in the world. The first part of this panel was videoed and can be seen on Youtube. As you can see, it was a fairly “animated” discussion and I struggled to get a word in edge-ways, but nevertheless, a wonderful weekend. And Kawamoto’s most recent screenings were put together by me for Toronto’s Shinsedai Festival in July. Missed them? Well, console yourself with the knowledge that Kimstim has put out both a compilation of his short works and his final feature Book of the Dead on DVD.

Kihachiro Kawamoto's House of Flame, stop-motion animation at its most exquisite

If you want to know a bit more about Kawamoto, there’s the interview I did with him for Midnight Eye and a longer article I wrote for Film International, which appeared in January 2007 and was available online at one point, but for now you’ll have to it track down in print yourselves. And for those who have never seen a single film by Kawamoto, Dojoji Temple and House of Flame are about is sublime as animation gets.

Kawamoto's earlier puppetry work for Asahi beer in the 1950s

Book of the Dead was always intended to be Kawamoto’s final animated work, but nevertheless, his death comes as particularly sad news. As I said, I only spend a very brief time talking with him, but I was amazed by his friendliness, his energetic spirit and his positive world view, and I am certain that the world was a better place for having him in it.

Kihachiro Kawamoto during production of Book of the Dead in 2004

Shinsedai guests (from l to r) Yasunobu Takahashi (Locked Out), Gen Takahashi (Confessions of a Dog), Tokachi Tsuchiya (A Normal Life, Please) and Akino Kondoh (Ladybird's Requiem), with Co-Programmer/ Co-Director Chris Magee and Excecutive Director James Heron

Actually this post title is a slightly misleading one. I have no intention of giving you a round up of last weekend’s Shinsedai Cinema Festival in Toronto. I’m too exhausted for a start, after another sleepless night courtesy of the newborn. In fact, I’m currently wondering if I am ever going to have the energy to attempt writing anything significant again. It’s at the 4pm mark at the moment, and I’m just a few minutes away from retreating back to bed after spending most of the day glowering unproductively through my headache at the screen. Secondly, as I wasn’t actually there in Toronto for the fest, my distant observations probably wouldn’t mean very much anyway. So instead, I just want to point you all in the direction of other some fest write-ups from those who actually were there. I will state first of all though that this year’s edition sounded like a rousing success, with attendances around double that of our inaugural year and a good time had by all, from what I’ve heard.

During the Opening Night screening of Kakera, Momoko Ando meets with a very special audience member, the esteemed director Deepa Mehta, as James Heron looks on

For those that are interested, first up there’s the Shinsedai website itself, which has two posts from Marc Saint-Cyr of the Toronto J-Film Pow-Wow written as the festival was ongoing. My co-programmer on Shinsedai, and Toronto J-Film Pow-Wow founder Chris Magee has also written up a review for Confessions of a Dog on his site, one of the talking point films of the fest, and one which viewers in the UK will have a chance to get a look at very soon. Cathy Munroe Hotes also has a review of the film on her blogspot, the Nishikata Film Review. (Just a quick note, but director Gen Takahashi has already had one film released on DVD in the UK, which is the completely-different Goth: Love Of Death.) The same site has a review of Yasunobu Takahashi’s Locked Out.

Toronto based experimental outfit Vowls get ready to lay down the live score to Kenji Mizoguchi's Water Magician

Bob Turnball of the Row Three blogspot has a review of the screening of Mizoguchi’s The Water Magician with live accompaniment by Vowls, a unique event I am really pissed off I wasn’t able to get out there for, but am glad to hear it was very well attended and people loved it, while Tetsuaki Matsue’s Live Tape gets a great write up on cineAWESOME. And I’m sure there’s more if you hunt around for it, but for now, to get a flavour of the mood of the weekend, check out Jon Jung’s photo album he put up on Facebook and take a listen to his VCinema podcast on the website Varied Celluloid, in which he and Marc Saint-Cyr talk about Kakera, followed by an interview with the film’s director and festival guest Momoko Ando. This is the first of a number of podcasts Jon Jung has planned from Shinsedai, and I should also say a big thanks to him for providing the pix that accompany the post. Thanks!

Kihachiro Kawamoto's sublime House of Flames (Kataku, 1979) at Shinsedai tonight!

The first evening is going to present you with a pretty impressive evening of Momoko Ando’s Kakera: A Piece of Our Life, much appreciated in these parts, and a programme of Kihachiro Kawamoto’s gorgeous stop motion animations. I’ve been harping on about the Kawamoto films for over 7 years, have written articles, programmed seasons etc etc, so hopefully you’ll have got the message by now – I think these are brilliant.

Anyway, if you are there, you won’t need to read the ramblings on the blog of someone the other side of the Atlantic to let you know what’s going on, and if you are not there, there’s not much point in me telling you about the programme anyway – it will only frustrate you. I will however be posting links to any news I find on the web about the weekend, as it is happening, in the comments here, so keep watching this space.

I am also wondering if I can beg a favour of those who are there to indulge the wishes of the co-programmer who couldn’t make it, and to post your thoughts on the festival here in the comments section of this post, not on my Facebook please, but on jaspersharp.com, just to keep me in the loop with how things are going. Let me know what you enjoyed, what you didn’t, what else you’re getting up to at the fest – everything in fact, to make it feel like I was there, if you will. After all, the first ever postings on my website were from last year’s Shinsedai, so it would be carrying on the tradition. Cheers!

Life has been even crazier than usual these past few weeks, which is why there have not been any posts recently and there my not be that many more in the immediate future either. For those that don’t know, my beautiful partner Michelle gave birth to our son, Thorin, at 2.30am on 8th July, so the past week has been something of a mixture of euphoria, blind panic, disbelief and head-mashed exhaustion. Wonderful news, being a dad, but I won’t bore you all with the details at this juncture. No, I’ve got a few other announcements to make first….

You're forgiven if you missed it, but Gen Takahashi's Confessions of a Dog was the best Japanese film of 2006!

First up is a reminder that next weekend in Toronto it is the 2nd Shinsedai Cinema Festival, a four-day showcase of the best recent Japanese films taking place in the Japan Canadian Cultural Centre between 22-25 July. There’s a link to this on the right hand of this page, just beneath Graham Humphrey’s masterful portrait of me, or you can click on the ‘events’ tab up above and you’ll get a whole load more info about this, including a map showing you how to get you to there, should you be in Toronto or anywhere near at the time – you’ve no excuse for not going! I do have an excuse for not going, of course, namely the baby, as well as the Atlantic ocean between me and the JCCC, but I did go last year and would have done again this year if I didn’t have another hungry mouth in the house to feed. It’s going to be amazing, I promise you.

There are some brilliant films playing, including some of the best-regarded titles of the past year, such as Tetsuaki Matsue’s Live Tape, Koya Yoshida’s Yuriko’s Aroma, Momoko Ando’s Kakera: A Piece of Our Life and Tokachi Tsuchiya’s A Normal Life Please, plus a few revivals/rediscoveries, notably Go Shibata’s stunning 1999 debut NN-891102 and Gen Takahashi’s epic The Wire-styled expose of police corruption Confessions of a Dog, a film I am frankly amazed so few people know about given that it was made back in 2006, although one which I am pretty sure will be picking up a lot more interest as the year progresses.

And another scene from Confessions of a Dog, as I love this film so much!

Another thing I am particularly excited about this year is a screening of Kenji Mizoguchi’s hauntingly beautiful silent classic The Water Magician, with a new soundtrack by the Toronto-based experimental outfit Vowls (their website is here, and you can also have a listen on myspace. Japanese silent films are rarely screened outside of Japan, but along with Teinosuke Kinugasa’s Page of Madness, this is one of the best of the limited handful of titles that survive, and it’s from one of the world’s greatest ever directors too. It looks absolutely gorgeous, with Mizoguchi’s atmospheric tracking shots and Kyoko Izumi’s vaguely ero-guro style carnival milieu making this a must-see, and the live accompaniment is only going to work in its favour. I’m actually gutted I am not going to be there!

Kenji Mizoguchi's haunting Water Magician, playing at Shinsedai with a live score by Vowls

There’s a whole host of filmmaker guests going to be attending too, including Akino Kondoh, Gen Takahashi, Momoko Ando, Yasunobu Takahashi and Tokachi Tsuchiya. Anyway, there’s a lot more info about the festival on the Shinsedai website, but if you are a Japanese film fan or scholar and are based in Toronto or its immediate environs, you will not get a better selection of films laid out for you than this.

Right, my next bit of news comes courtesy of Matteo Boscarol, who has his own impressive looking Italian-language blog on all things Japan-related. It is about the Italian DVD release of Masao Adachi’s Gushing Prayer, or rather Gushing Prayer: A 15-Year-Old Prostitute as it was originally known: when I got a new print struck up from the original negative as one of the films to go out on the various screening to promote Behind the Pink Curtain (its played at the British Film Institute, Austin Fantastic Fest, Montreal Fantasia, Thessaloniki and Nippon Connection so far), I decided it was wise to suppress any insinuations of underage sex in its title to facilitate its passage through customs. Those that have seen it will know it is not some lurid jailbait fantasy, but a rather haunting avant-garde work that takes a metaphorical look at the student protests in Japan in the 1960s. Or something like that. I’m still not entirely sure what it means. This was a film that got a rather polarised response during its festival screenings, with some viewers scratching their heads non-plused before moving on and dismissing it as pretentious, and others bowled over by its rather melancholy tone and fascinating snap shots of Tokyo back in the day. Personally I love it, but whatever your take, you can’t deny its uniqueness. Now it is finally available for viewing on DVD, and I have it on good authority that the release by Raro Video actually has English as well as Italian subs, which I take to mean that they haven’t blocked out the English language subs that were burnt into the actual print as we prepared it. So this is great news for all Adachi fans, and if you’re interested, then please allow me to direct you to one of the several online retailers offering it up for order here.

Italian DVD release by Raro Video of Masao Adachi's Gushing Prayer, with English subtitles!

I also don’t know if I’m giving too much away here, as I think it is something of an open secret, but there will be a Masao Adachi retrospective in France later in the year, which should result in some of his other films being released on DVD. If there are any readers who don’t have a clue who Adachi is, then I’ll point you to an interview I did with him for Midnight Eye a few years back.

So that just leaves one other brief topic before I sign off for today, which is the publication of issue two of the Journal of Japanese and Korean Cinema. Articles include Olga V Solovieva’s Kurosawa Akira’s The Idiot: Where the East meets the West, Isolde Standish’s Night and Fog in Japan: Fifty Years On and Steven Rawle’s From The Black Society to The Isle: Miike Takashi and Kim Ki-Duk at the intersection of Asia Extreme.

There’s also a rather nice review of Behind the Pink Curtain by Stephen Prince, who writes “Jasper Sharp gives us a detailed history of the pink film, copiously illustrated and written in an accessible and engaging manner… [he is] an able guide to this inchoate genre that fused social subversion and crass exploitation… Behind the Pink Curtain will not soon be equaled in its portrait of a cinematic demi-monde whose film-makers have flaunted their status as outlaws and outsiders.” Nice!

If you’re in Toronto this July, my God you’re in for a treat. If you’re not in Toronto, then I suggest you make an effort to be so, if only because on the weekend of the 22-25^th is the second Shinsedai Cinema Festival, one of the biggest, if not the biggest, showcases of recent Japanese films in North America.

I’ve been working on the line-up with my festival co-director/co-programmer Chris Magee of the Toronto J-Film Pow-wow for the past 6 months now, and we’re both really proud with what we’ve got on show this year.

I posted details about the first batch of titles to be announced a few weeks ago (see here). Now the full programme has been published, and you can find all the information you should need up on the Shinsedai website. There’s also a Facebook group and you can get updates and news by signing up to our Twitter.

I could rave on about the films for ages, and indeed I probably will over the coming weeks. For now however, I’m going to post up Chris Magee’s info about the festival, and please please please, if this appeals to you, can you pass the info on as far and wide as possible? Thanks!

Anyway, over to you Chris…

The anticipation has been building for the past few weeks, but now we are very proud to announce the full line-up and screening schedule for the 2nd annual SHINSEDAI CINEMA FESTIVAL taking place at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre in Toronto. Joining the already announced screenings of Kenji Mizoguchi’s silent classic “The Water Magician” (with live musical accompaniment by Toronto’s Vowls), the Canadian Premiere of Gen Takahashi’s police epic “Confessions of a Dog” and the Toronto Premiere of the ward-winning concert documentary “Live Tape” are:

KAKERA: A PIECE OF OUR LIFE (Toronto Premiere/ Opening Night Film): Haru (Hikari Mitsushima) is a university student with a less than ideal boyfriend whose life is turned upside down after meeting a young woman named Riko (Eriko Nakamura). the two women fall for each otehr and embark on a rocky and romantic relationship. First time director Momoko Ando goes well beyond tired old lesbian chic with this magical and absurdly comic film. We are pleased to announce that director Momoko Ando will be in attendance at this screening!

YURIKO’S AROMA (Canadian Premiere/ Closing Night Film): Massage therapist Yuriko (Noriko Eguchi) is a master of scent. She whips up aromatherapy lotions to slather into her clients at her friends massage spa, but Yuriko isn’t prepared when she catches a whiff of the the salon owner’s sweaty 17-year-old soccer-playing nephew Takeshi (Shota Someya) and is immediately overcome with desire… or love… or possibly both in this sexy black comedy by Koya Yoshida.

Noriko Eguchi in Yuriko's Aroma, directed by Kota Yoshida.

A NORMAL LIFE, PLEASE! (North American Premiere): 37-year-old cement truck driver Nobukazu Kaikura kept up a hellish work schedule during the spring of 2006 – 552 hours in a single month. When Kaikura seeks the protection of a labour union he incurs the wrath of his bosses and 5the thugs they hire to intimidate Kaikura and his family day and night. Tokachi Tsuchiya’s A Normal Life, Please! has won Best Documentary at the 2009 Dubai International Film Festival, and Best Documentary at the 17th annual Raindance Film Festival in London.

OUR BRIEF ETERNITY (Canadian Premiere): A mysterious virus is infecting the population in Takuya Fukushima’s Our Brief Eternity. Those afflicted suddenly fall into a coma and when they recover they have lost their memories of the person closest and dearest to them. During this epidemic irresponsible playboy Teru (Kouta Kusano) runs into his old girlfriend Mio (Romi), but she doesn’t remember him. Mio has fallen victim to the virus. The two must start their relationship from scratch, but Teru’s case of cold feet causes him to make a drastic decision – to risk infection and his memory.

Takuya Fukushima's Our Brief Eternity

LOCKED OUT (Canadian Premiere): Six-year-old Ketia (Takeru Shimada) gets lost in a mall parking lot and accidentally gets into the car of a young man named Hiroshi (Kiichi Sonobe). Hiroshi has a bloody pick axe in the trunk of his car and is haunted by a violent, demonic doppelgänger, but is he what he appears to be – a psychotic killer, or is there a different story to be told? Yasunobu Takahashi’s Locked Out is equal parts edge-of-your-seat psychological thriller and life affirming road movie.

OFF HIGHWAY 20 (Canadian Premiere): Route 20 is a highway that runs west out of Tokyo as far Shiojiri in Nagano. About 130 kilometres from the highway’s starting point is Kofu City. This is the birth place of director Katsuya Tomita and his film Off Highway 20 shows us a side of Japan that many people never see one populated by yakuza, small time street thugs who huff solvents, gambling addicts and speed freaks. Gritty and blackly comic like Jim Jarmusch crossed with Trainspotting, Off Highway 20 takes us on a walk on the wild side of contemporary Japan.

Katsuya Tomita's chav-tastic Off Highway 20.

KIHACHIRO KAWAMOTO: JAPAN’S MASTER PUPPETEER: Born in 1925 in Tokyo Kihachiro Kawamoto orginally wanted to pursue a career in architecture while taking up doll-making as a hobby, but in 1950 he embarked on what is now a legendary career in animation. Kawamoto has spent the last five plus decades creating exquisite stop-motion puppet animation that has won him praise worldwide. In a special programme curated by Jasper Sharp audiences will get to see a sampling of some of Kawamoto’s best known short films including 1970′s The Demon, 1973′s The Trip, 1976′s Dojoji Temple, 1979′s House of Flame, 1988′s To Shoot Without Shooting and 1990′s Briar-Rose, or the Sleeping Beauty.

House of Flame, part of the programme of Kihachiro Kawamoto's haunting stop motion puppet animations.

OH! OTSUKA DRUGSTORE: (Canadian Premiere): An off kilter comedy about a curmudgeonly woman who runs a drugstore and one of her regular customers – young high school girl she takes under her wing. It turns out this girl has a crush on a certain boy but is too shy to make the leap and speak to him. Can the drugstore owner help her young friend find true love? And if so will her crazy methods actually work? Romantic comedy meets bizarre friendship tale, and all set to music by Japanese pop sensation AKB48.

DOME ANIMATION SPECIAL: (Presented in partnership with Nippon Connection) Tokyo’s Image Forum is the most respected producer of experimental film, video and animation in Japan, as well as one of the most important sources for experimental visual culture in the world. DOME Animation collects 15 short animated films by 15 of Image Forum’s most promising young animators.

NN-891102 (Toronto Premiere): A survivor of the bombing of Nagasaki has in his possession an astounding document of that tragic day –the sound of the “Fat Man” atomic bomb detonating on August 9th, 1945 at 11:02AM. At first he is appalled by this recording, but as time goes by he becomes obsessed with recreating this terrifying sound… a process that will jeopardize his sanity and his life. The debut feature film by Late Bloomer and Doman Seman director Osaka’s Go Shibata presents a gripping portrait of grief, memory, madness, and dangerous personal obsession.

NN-891102: Go Shibata's startling debut resurrected.

If those films aren’t enough to get you excited the Shinsedai Cinema Festival is also proud to announce a great selection of shorts that will be screening with our feature selections: sugarmountain’s zany “Gunman Champion”, Satoshi Nagano’s black comedy “Finishing Touch”, Shoh Kataoka’s sweet look at childhood “Jellyfish Boy”, Reiko Tahara’s experimental short documentary “Remnants”, Kotaru Wajima’s mini-family drama, “Invitation” and Hiroshi Iwanaga’s meditative coming-of-age story “That’s All”.

Last, but not least is a way to see selected films at Shinsedai 2010 cheaply, or for FREE. As a way to highlight some of the more off-center and experimental Japanese indie films we have created the Jishu Eiga Room. Throughout July 24th and July 25th the following films will be playing continuously starting at 12:00PM so you can sample a little or a lot of work that pushes the boundaries of film.

DOME ANIMATION SPECIAL

DIFFERENT CITIES

OH! OTSUKA DRUGSTORE

YUKI KAWAMURA TRILOGY

Access to the Jishu Eiga Room is FREE FOR DELUXE and 5-FILM PASS HOLDERS (entry into the Jishu Eiga Room does not use up one of the five films on the 5-Film Pass), while INDIVIDUAL ENTRY FOR NON-PASS HOLDERS COSTS ONLY $4.00.

We are also proud to announce our FULL SCREENING SCHEDULE for the 2nd annual Shinsedai Cinema Festival! Visit our website to start planning your festival experience:

http://shinsedai-fest.com/tag/shinsedai-2010/

TICKETS AND PASSES will be going on sale for the 2nd annual Shinsedai Cinema Festival this coming WEDNESDAY, JUNE 23rd! See you all at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre next month!

Best,

Chris MaGee

Since our inaugural year in 2009 so many great films have come out of Japan. Shinsedai Cinema Festival co-programmers Jasper Sharp (Midnight Eye) and Chris MaGee (Toronto J-Film Pow-Wow) have spent the past eight months watching as many of these films as humanly possible so that they can bring the best independent, and in many cases under-appreciated, Japanese films to movie audiences here in Toronto. From July 22nd to July 25th, 2010 the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre will be hosting this celebration of Japanese film, and while Sharp and MaGee are still putting the finishing touches on the 2nd annual Shinsedai Cinema Festival line-up we are proud to announce the first block of films that audiences can expect this year at the JCCC.

Live Tape – The Toronto Premiere of Tetsuaki Matsue’s award-winning concert documentary featuring indie singer-songwriter Kenta Maeno. Shot on New Year’s Day 2009 in one single unbroken take Matsue and Maeno take us on a musical tour of Tokyo’s Musashino district. Winner of the top prize in the Japanese Eyes programme at the 2009 Tokyo International Film Festival and the Nippon Digital Award at the 2010 Nippon Connection Japanese Film Festival in Frankfurt.

Kenji Mizoguchi’s The Water Magician – The silent 1933 classic by one of Japan’s most revered directors is also one of Japanese cinema’s very first independently produced films. The love story between a renowned female performer who literally makes water dance across the stage and an impoverished carriage driver will be brought to life with live musical accompaniment by Toronto experimental quartet Vowls. Not to be missed! *Co-presented with the Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival*

Confessions of a Dog – A gritty police epic that exposes the corrupt underbelly of Japanese law enforcement, Gen Takahashi’s Confessions of a Dog was too controversial to receive a theatrical release in Japan. The drama that stars Shun Sugata as a police detective who not only bends the rules but breaks them ended up having to be distributed through Hong Kong to festivals world wide. We are proud to premiere the film in Canada and to have Gen Takahashi as our guest.

Island of Dreams – First time feature director Tetsuichiro Tsuta goes against the trend of shooting on hi-def video with his film Island of Dreams, an homage to 1960s films of Akira Kurosawa, Seijun Suzuki and Kinji Fukasaku. Tsuta and his crew not only shot this eco-thriller on 16mm black-and-white film, but also developed and edited the film entirely by hand.

The Dark Harbour – A hilariously downbeat comedy with a heart, Naito Takatsugu’s The Dark Harbour will be having its Canadian premiere at Shinsedai. The story of a lonely fisherman who discovers a single mother and her son hiding in his closet The Dark Harbour brings to mind the straight-faced comedy of Finnish master Aki Kaurismaki.

The Red Spot – Marie Miyayama’s Japanese/ German co-produced debut feature is a touching drama about a young Japanese woman who travels to Bavaria to search for the exact spot where a car accident took the life of her parents and younger brother 18 years before. What she discovers in Germany is more than just a red spot on a map though.

Different Cities – Experimental video artist Kazuhiro Goshima uses subtle CGI-animation to clear Tokyo of all but a handful of its inhabitants in Different Cities. We follow five inter-weaving characters as they wake up to discover they’ve become lost in their own city.

Yuki Kawamura Trilogy – Musician, video artist, and now filmmaker Yuki Kawamura has crafted three touching Ozu-esque drama’s about the impermamance of life and the magic that can be found in a single moment. Mixing traditional Japanese Noh theatre and modern hi-def technology these three films – Spark, Angel Robe and Grandmother – will be receiving their Toronto premiere at Shinsedai.

Ladybirds’ Requiem – Artist and animator Akino Kondoh’s first short film The Evening Traveling was a huge hit at Shinsedai last year, so this year we’ve not only programmed Kondoh’s second animated short Ladybirds’ Requiem, but we are featuring her 2004 painting Red Fishes as our official poster image. To top it all off Kondoh will be in attendance at this year’s festival.

That’s just a smaple of what audiences can expect this year at the 2nd annual Shinsedai Cinema Festival. Check back on June 17th for the full line-up and schedule of this year’s festival!

The evening kicked off with a reception in which thanks were given to our sponsors by James, then a witty presentation from the president of Subaru Canada, the company that contributed the substantial amount of money that allowed this event to happen. The latter, Yokoyama-san, got a whole load of kudos from me after recalling his movie-watching youth hanging around the legendary ATG cinema in Shinjuku, and reeling off a whole load of names of Japanese directors before settling on his favourite, the mighty Shohei Imamura (which reminds me, I’ve some exciting Imamura news to share within the next week). Speeches were completed, all guests were brought to the stage, a toast was raised, much sake was quaffed and sushi scoffed, and photos taken, including some of me and Chris with our default poster girl, Thunderfish’s Junko Kimoto, which I’ll somehow insert into this posting as soon as I get access to one of them.

Naked of Defenses

The films went down really well too: I’d not yet seen Naked of Defenses, the Grand Prix Winner from last year’s Pia Film Festival, but it was a brilliant one to open with, a hugely moving and inventive tale that really reminded me exactly what it was that got me attracted me to Japanese cinema in the first place – we’ve got a review of this popping up on Midnight Eye soon, but I’ll say now its already among my favourites of the year. It got a great response from the audience too. Tsuki Inoue’s brilliantly inventive short, A Woman Who is Beating the Earth, which I remember being praised vociferously by Tom Mes on Midnight Eye not so long ago, was another revelation, and I’m certainly looking forward to seeing more from this exciting new director in the future. Maya Yonesho’s Wiener Wuast was another of Chris’ picks, an experimental mixture of stop-motion animation and real-life cityscapes – we’re screening a similar work of hers later today, Israel Mix. And then the surreal, hypnotic non-narrative work Hottentot Apron, probably one of the most challenging of the festival, but great to see such experimental films getting an airing outside Japan.

Little Birds

Anyway, I’m hoping we get a similar load of attendances for today, and I’m pretty sure we’ll even be seeing a whole lot more, now the conflicting schedules of Toronto After Dark downtown has come to an end, although I’m not sure whether we’re really appealing to the same audience. We’ve got six program slots today, so it’s going to be a long ‘un, but I’m really looking forward to seeing how some of my selection goes down, especially the Iraq documentary Little Birds, which has been far too seldom screened overseas in my opinion.

Some great press also appearing, so I’ll link up here from yesterday’s Toronto Star and today’s Globe and Mail. Another update tomorrow…