Jasper Sharp » Third Window Films

Banzai Kantoku-tachi! Kakera and Locked Out on the big screens

Jasper — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 17:36:37 +0000

Kakera UK release poster

I had a lot of fun this Saturday, with the UK launch of Momoko Ando’s Kakera taking place at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts and distributor Adam Torel of Third Window Films laying on a really great shindig after the screening. This wasn’t the official UK premiere, as the film was the centrepiece of my Japanese Women Filmmakers special programme at Raindance last year, which was in actual fact the world premiere. Instead, this event was billed as the Special Gala Opening, before it begins a longer run at the ICA from April 2^nd and goes on to play selected venues across the country, and I’m delighted to say that, as with the Raindance showings, it was really well attended and it was great to see Momoko back in the country again.

Tasuku Nagaoka and Hikari Mitsushima in a scene from Kakera.

Unusually, the film is being released more or less simultaneously in London and Tokyo, so Momoko has already jetted back for the Japanese opening. Anyway, I was present at the ICA to conduct an interview for the forthcoming DVD release and to moderate the Q&A after the screening, which I thought went great; there were a lot of interesting, intelligent questions from a lively audience (especially from members of the Coventry East Asian Film Society, who were there en masse), and the director gave us some fascinating insights into some of the personal experiences that worked their way into the film. All in all, a big success, and a great time was had by all.

There’s going to be an interview with Momoko and a review of the film popping up on Midnight Eye any day now to tie in with the UK theatrical run, and it will also be playing at Nippon Connection in Frankfurt mid-April (and presumably other festivals after that), but if its not coming to a cinema near you, then the DVD is already up for pre-order on Amazon, and is released on June 21st.

Momoko Ando and the controversial Japanese ad campaign for Kakera, taken in Tokyo.

Third Window has also announced it has acquired Yoshihiro Nakamura’s Fish Story for the UK, which was in many of the other Midnight Eye critics Top Tens from last year. I have to confess I still haven’t seen it, but along with the rest of all us London-dwellers, I’ll get a chance in May at the Terracotta Far East Film Festival held at the Prince Charles Cinema, Leicester Square, along with a whole host of other top titles from 2009, including Mamoru Hosoda’s acclaimed anime Summer Wars. Oh yes, these are good times for Asian film fans in the UK…

While it was great to see Momoko back in London again, I should add that it was only a couple of weeks ago that I last saw her in Tokyo, along with all the other guests that came to Raindance, firstly at another great bash in Tokyo kindly organised by Yoshihiro Ito, director of the sublime shorts package Vortex and Others, then secondly at a post-screening screening panel discussion for Yasunobu Takahashi’s Locked Out, which after touring various international festivals last year had just been released at the new Roppongi Cinemart, on a double bill with another great indie title that has screened quite extensively worldwide, Nobuyuki Miyake’s Lost & Found.

Yasunobu Takahashi's Locked Out

A quick bit about the Cinemart. There’s been a lot of negative murmurings over the past year or so about the current state of the Japanese film industry, namely the dominance by the major studios, in particular Toho, and the prevalence of tried and tested formulas such as TV and manga adaptations, idol vehicles and the like, but this new venue is quite a find, and apparently part of a minor chain with others venues in Shinjuku and Shinsaibashi too. Stuck in the heart of Tokyo’s gaijin stronghold of Roppongi, it boasts several screens (I think there were three but I can’t remember exactly) pretty much dedicated to screening lower-budget or independently-produced films, mainly Japanese made, but also from other Asian countries, most notably South Korea, as well as other international art films. I’m trying to imagine how a similar enterprise in London might fare, devoted to British and Irish works, but somehow I can’t imagine it being as well-attended as it was for the late screening I caught of Locked Out. This is what I love about the Japanese industry; just when you think its dying out or has reached a lull, there’s some new development that emerges that completely catches you off-guard. One of the main problems that Japanese filmmakers have faced over the last five years or so is the bottleneck in getting their films actually out there to the general public. There was no shortage of interesting work being made, just a shortage of screens on which to get them out there. And I’m also heartened by the fact that there’s clearly a local audience out there for it too.

Nobuyuki Miyake's Lost & Found

The other thing that really hit me this trip out to Japan was the vast leap in the quality of recent indie jishu eiga releases. There’s barely any of the self-indulgent approach to storytelling and amateurish shaky handicam stylistics that dominated much of the sector’s output a few years ago. Both Locked Out and Lost & Found are really slickly made, well acted, well lit, and beautifully shot using HD cameras, and they both tell solid stories in a nicely-paced, self-contained format. In a nutshell, they are both really professional pieces and their directors are certain to go along way in the industry. After also recently catching Yosuke Okuda’s polished and energizing youth-on-the-rampage movie Hot as Hell, which won the Grand Prix in the Off Theatre section of Yubari and Tetsuichiro Tsuta’s retro-looking environmental thriller Island of Dreams, which scooped up a number of awards at last year’s PIA Film Festival, it is clear to me that there are some great new directors emerging and Japanese cinema is once more in the midst of a quiet but highly significant indie revolution, and its going to be fascinating to see where it’s all going to take us.

Locked Out director Yasunobu Takahashi flanked by Tokachi Tsuchiya and Momoko Ando during panel at Roppongi Cinemart on 9th March 2010.

Anyway, the Locked Out panel discussion made for a lovely penultimate night during my Japan trip, as it took place between Yasunobu Takahashi, A Normal Life Please director Tokachi Tsuchiya and Momoko Ando, all three friendly faces from their trip to London last October for Raindance – there was much natsukashii sentiment in the air as Takahashi-san presented a 10-minute video diary he had shot during Raindance, which was quite a shock as I hadn’t exactly anticipated seeing my face projected large onto the screen, and was content to sit discreetly hidden in corner, before being invited out front to say a few words on the state of recent indie productions in Japan. A great coda to my stay, and I wish all three a great future in the industry – they’ve certainly all got the talent for it!

With Locked Out director Yasunobu Takahashi and lead actor Kiichi Sonobe

Kakera – A Piece of Our Life up for UK Theatrical release in April

Jasper — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 14:36:21 +0000

Hikari Mitushima in Momoko Ando's Kakera - A Piece of Our Life

Some rather joyous festive season news courtesy of Third Window Films. The company has just announced that is has acquired UK theatrical and DVD rights for Momoko Ando’s touching debut, Kakera – A Piece of Our Life. As has been mentioned on these pages several times, the film played to great aplomb at this year’s Raindance Film Festival back in November, with Momoko in attendance for two sold-out screenings along with former Smashing Pumpkins guitarist James Iha, who contributed the film’s score. It was greeted with a similarly enthusiastic reception at Stockholm Film Festival and Kinotayo in Paris, where Momoko was awarded the ‘Prix Nikon de la Plus Belle Image.’ The film opens in London on April 2^nd 2010, coinciding with the Japanese release, although there will be a premiere in London the week before this, which I’m rather hoping that Momoko Ando will be over for.

This is probably as good a time as any to correct a piece of misinformation that somehow crept on to the Raindance website and has found itself replicated on the Internet Movie Database, but Kakera was directed and WRITTEN by Momoko Ando – the credit for Yuko Shiomaki is incorrect, so I hope this gets changed on the IMDB sometime soon. Momoko is the daughter of the famous actor-director Eiji Okuda, and sister of Sakura Ando, one of the most exciting new actresses to emerge from Japan in recent years. Sakura can be seen in Yuki Tanada’s Ain’t No Tomorrows, but also in Love Exposure, which Third Window put out theatrically a month or so ago to an overwhelmingly positive critical response. Love Exposure and Kakera also share the same actress, Hikari Mitsushima.

Still on the subject of Love Exposure, other news from Third Window is that this films DVD release has been put back a fortnight to January 25^th, although it is still up for Amazon pre-order.

Shion Sono’s Love Exposure released in London from this Friday.

Jasper — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:25:31 +0000

Hikari Mitsushima in Shion Sono's Love Exposure

It’s done great guns on the festival circuit and now, courtesy of Third Window Films, Love Exposure is just about to get its official UK release with a month-long run at the ICA in London this November, with a screening on November 14^th at Leeds International Film Festival and no doubt other dates in the UK to follow. It’s surely a bold move on the behalf of both Third Window Films and the ICA, but (and I’m getting almost tired of saying this), DO NOT BE PUT OFF BY THE 4-HOUR RUNNING TIME! This is the strongest film from Japan I’ve seen in a long-time. Read any review you can find online about it, ask anyone who has seen it. They’ll all tell you the same thing – it’s an absolutely fantastic experience, so intense you’ll be still struggling to assimilate it all for days, nay weeks, after you’ve seen it. The film whips along at such a cracking pace that you’re barely registering the time, and when the interval occurs, it seems like a major inconvenience.

Takahiro Nishijima, the star of Love Exposure

I’ve experienced the film twice already, firstly on DVD while looking for suitable titles for this year’s Raindance, and secondly at Raindance itself. The first time I thought it would take a couple of sittings to get through, but it didn’t take too long for me to realise I was in for the long haul. The second time, at the festival itself, was my first chance seeing it on a big screen, and I was so immersed in it that even then I knew I simply had to see it again, so I’ll most certainly be trotting off to the ICA at some juncture. And this seems to be the typical response. Several at the Japanese guests at Raindance had already seen the film several times. One chalked up their sixth viewing at the festival – that’s a full day in total of Shion Sono’s masterpiece! Another reported their experience of seeing the film in Tokyo, in which during the interval the other viewers could be seen wandering around with ecstatic expressions on their faces, and I couldn’t but help notice a similar phenomenon at Raindance. Ooh, I’m getting goose-pimples just thinking about it. My only regret is that the film was originally meant to be six hours, and Sono had to cut it down by a quarter at the insistence of his producer. I can only pray that at some point we’ll ever get a chance to see the full cut.

Sakura Ando and friends

Not sure what else I can say to anyone but to implore you to go see it. If you’ve seen it once, then see it again, tell your friends what a masterpiece it is. And if you have no idea of what I am talking about, then here’s a quick taster in the form of the trailer.