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!

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

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

]]> http://jaspersharp.com/blog/news/2010/03/banzai-kantoku-tachi/feed/ 2 http://jaspersharp.com/blog/news/2010/02/nippon-connection-programme-taster-for-14-18-april-2010/ http://jaspersharp.com/blog/news/2010/02/nippon-connection-programme-taster-for-14-18-april-2010/#comments Fri, 05 Feb 2010 12:42:45 +0000 Jasper http://jaspersharp.com/blog/?p=258

As some of you may know, the start of 2010 for me has been a rather gruelling period spent finishing off another book manuscript which I’ll post details about on this website closer to its publication date. This is the reason why my posts during January have been rather sporadic, and are going to continue to be so for February, I’m afraid, as I’m going to be taking a well earned holiday before heading off to Japan at the end of the month for the legendary Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival in Hokkaido. I’ll post on my adventures from Yubari while I’m there. I’m going to be partaking in a panel discussion there with a couple of other guys who are also active in curating Japanese cinema programmes across the world, namely Marc Walkow of Outcast Cinema and Alex Zahlten of Frankfurt’s Nippon Connection, which should be a lot of fun. Which leads me on to this particular post, as Nippon Connection have just sent me through a taster of what’s in store this April, promising an end to this long dark winter of the soul.

Nippon Connection is the largest event devoted to Japanese film outside of Japan, and in fact, probably inside Japan too. This year’s festival celebrates its tenth anniversary between 14-18 April, with another impressive programme, which is set to include the latest from 9 Souls/Blue Spring/Hanging Garden director Toshiaki Toyoda, The Blood of Rebirth; Takashi Miike’s Crows II; Miwa Nishikawa’s Dear Doctor, the best Japanese film of last year according to the critics of Kinema Junpo magazine; actor Koji Yakusho’s directing debut, Toad’s Oil; Tekkon Kinkreet director Michael Arias’ live action debut Heaven’s Door; and many other titles.

I should also point out that beyond the big name titles on the press release, Nippon Connection boast a brilliant selection of independent work from first time directors, which always lead to some exciting discoveries. In previous years, they’ve presented the likes of Yasutomu Chikuma’s Now, I… and Tokachi Tsuchiya’s A Normal Life, Please, so there’s always plenty of fresh new gems to stumble across in its packed programme.

Just before I head off however, I’d also like to remind all UK Japanese film fans that the Japan Foundation UK’s touring programme is kicking off at the ICA on Tuesday 9^th February with six films going out under the banner “Girls on Film: Females in Contemporary Japanese Cinema” which will be also travelling to the following venues:

9 to 17 February – ICA, London

22 February to 4 March – Showroom, Sheffield (Except German plus Rain)

5 to 9 March – Queen’s Film Theatre, Belfast (Except Non-ko)

10 to 14 March – Filmhouse, Edinburgh

13 to 21 March – Arnolfini, Bristol

]]> http://jaspersharp.com/blog/news/2010/02/nippon-connection-programme-taster-for-14-18-april-2010/feed/ 0 http://jaspersharp.com/blog/news/2009/10/best-documentary-award-at-raindance-for-tokachi-tsuchiyas-a-normal-life-please/ http://jaspersharp.com/blog/news/2009/10/best-documentary-award-at-raindance-for-tokachi-tsuchiyas-a-normal-life-please/#comments Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:08:43 +0000 Jasper http://jaspersharp.com/blog/?p=121

The dust has settled, the guests have all departed, and here I am sitting home alone mulling over how it all went. Yes, Raindance Film Festival is over for another year, and after a reasonably slow start, exploded into one of the busiest I’ve ever attended. As I posted last week, virtually every single screening was sold out on the Wednesday. Amazing! And it didn’t really let up after that… And what with all the late night drinking, meaning not getting home till at least 3-4am on most nights after negotiating the labyrinthine night-bus routes trying to work out how to get to my new home from various different parts of the city, I’m physically and mentally shattered. But I’m in high spirits nonetheless, as I know that I and all the other guests from Japan will be returning to our respective routines having made new friends, nurtured new ideas about the future and emerged from that great chemistry of minds that always occurs when you have creative, talented people from so many different backgrounds assembled in one place for such a reasonably long but intense period. So anyway, over the next few days, before I head down to Bristol for the Shohei Imamura retrospective at the Arnolfini, I intend to make good my original promise and actually write a bit about the festival – only not while its actually happening, of course, but by way of a series of retroactive looks at the high points of the past week or so.

One person who should be returning from Raindance very happy is Tokachi Tsuchya, proud recipient of the Best Documentary Award for A Normal Life Please (the Japanese title, Futsu no shigoto o shitai translates more directly as ‘I’d like a proper job’, a sentiment I certainly share at times!). And a much-deserved win it was too, for sure, but still a really pleasant surprise for me, as foreign language documentaries generally have to try so much harder with English language audiences, and chances for most people to see them are rare. Tsuchiya’s work was literally born out of his own blood, sweat and tears – he was assaulted several times during the making of his film, his glasses broken, cigarettes stubbed out on his hands, his camera grabbed etc, most evident during the film’s stand-out sequence when the heavies hired by the employers of truck driver Kaikura’s arrive at his mother’s funeral to intimidate him to leave his worker’s union. (I loved it when Tsuchiya said he was terrified that when the film screened in Japan, his nemesis Kudo might turn up with his gang and wreak their revenge).

Tsuchiya seemed particularly moved when he received the award, saying that not only was it his first trip to England, but also it was the first time he’d ever received an award (handed out this time by our wonderful guest and jury member, Momoko Ando). As he explained in the very animated q&a after the screening, not only did the whole concept of labour unions originate in England, but also their dark flipside in the form of Thatcher’s deregulation policies of the 1980s, which have had a profound influence on Japanese government policy, hence the large number of people working themselves to death in Japan and freelancers like Kaikura busting his guts for a mind-boggling 300 hours a month for really only the most basic of wages – I think his monthly take home pay was less than the equivalent of around 1500 pounds. The film’s airing was particularly timely in the UK, in light of our current economic situation necessitating severe economic belt tightening all round, specifically in the public sector (though I can tell you from my own situation as a freelance writer, pay rates have dropped so low that I might as well be working at MacDonalds) and the recent contraversial announcement by the postal workers union that they’re about to go on strike. One really gets the impression that the whole free market system that’s been pushed so far over the past few decades, in which the number agencies, sub-contractors, consultancy firms, advisors etc involved in every industry has expanded so much and the people at the bottom of the pile actually doing the work pushed to ever longer hours in increasingly poor working conditions, is reaching breaking point, and one has to wonder where it’s all heading. Tsuchiya’s film provoked a lot of discussion while exposing a particularly ugly side of Japanese industry that is near unbelievable for one of the richest countries in the world. I really hope more people get a chance to see it. It’s about as vital a piece of filmmaking as it gets.

I should also say a big thanks at this juncture to Yuri Kubota and those kind folks at Nippon Connection for preparing a subtitled version of this for festival screenings. This is a film that really needs to be seen by as many people as possible. I grabbed a pretty interesting interview with Tsuchiya-san too, which will appear on Midnight Eye sometime in the not so distant future, while in the meantime Japanese readers might be interested in taking a look at the film’s homepage. For now however, keep your eye out for other posts here in the not so distant future about some of the other titles we screened.

]]> http://jaspersharp.com/blog/news/2009/10/best-documentary-award-at-raindance-for-tokachi-tsuchiyas-a-normal-life-please/feed/ 0 http://jaspersharp.com/blog/news/2009/09/titles-announced-for-londons-raindance-film-festival-30-september-%e2%80%93-11-october-2009/ http://jaspersharp.com/blog/news/2009/09/titles-announced-for-londons-raindance-film-festival-30-september-%e2%80%93-11-october-2009/#comments Tue, 01 Sep 2009 23:01:24 +0000 Jasper http://jaspersharp.com/blog/?p=77

Love Exposure

I’ve been champing at the bit over the past few weeks waiting to announce the titles being screened at this year’s Raindance, but now I’m just about to do it, it seems the programme announcement might be overshadowed by another piece of Raindance-related news, namely the banning of this year’s festival trailer. Don’t want to dwell too much on this, as the powers that be have given their reasons in a letter that can be read here. Nevertheless, I can’t help but think this represents something of a sense-of-humour failure from the guys who once had us all singing along “Baba, baba, baba ba, bababa” before the screenings started, and fails to view the trailer in the spirit intended. Anyway, I’ve written already in my Grotesque post of August 19th about the futility of censorship in the internet age, so to prove my point, I’ll redirect any potentially interested parties to it here. I’d be interested if anyone has any opinions on this matter.

Anyway, the full schedule has yet to go online, but for now I just want spill the beans about the films I’ve been involved in selecting (this is my website, after all…) Most of these are in the Japanese section, though I also brought a couple of other titles to the attention of the festival. In the run up to the main event, I hope to give you a bit more information on at least some of these. There’s some brilliant stuff playing this year, so hope to see as many of you there as possible.

Japanese Women Filmmakers at Raindance

Since 2002, Raindance Film Festival has continued in its strong support for Japanese filmmaking, with its Way Out East section the largest annual showcase for new Japanese cinema in the United Kingdom, screening at least ten recent features and documentaries annually. The 17th Raindance Festival, held between 30 September – 11 October 2009, this year turns its spotlight on the rising tide of women filmmakers in Japan, with a special selection of five features and one shorts program from some of the country’s most exciting talent.

Kakera - A Piece of Our Life

Director Momoko Ando will be in attendance to introduce the World Premiere of her debut feature, A PIECE OF OUR LIFE – KAKERA -. The film, scored by Smashing Pumpkins guitarist James Iha, is a touching portrait of a romantic relationship between Haru, a college student whose relationship with her self-centred boyfriend is going nowhere, and Riko, a bisexual medical artist who makes prosthetic body parts. Born in 1982, Ando is the daughter of the acclaimed actor-director Eiji Okuda and the sister of rising starlet Sakura Ando, who features in two other films in the Way out East section, LOVE EXPOSURE and AIN’T NO TOMORROWS. A former student of the Slade School of Fine Art, her return to London to present her new film and serve as one of the festival’s Jury Members promises to be an unforgettable experience.

Also in attendance will be Sachi Hamano, the most prolific female director in Japan with over 400 films to her name, mainly in the genre of the erotic pink film. She will be here to present her 2001 non-pink title LILY FESTIVAL, a comedy drama in which the inhabitants of a residential home for women, aged between 69 and 91, find their passions rekindled when the first male resident moves in amongst them, a 75-year-old lothario with a charming manner and a colourful past. Hamano will be accompanied by LILY FESTIVAL’s screenwriter Kuninori Yamazaki.

Ain't No Tomorrows

Yuki Tanada’s debut feature MOON AND CHERRY played to great aplomb at Raindance in 2006. Her most recent film, AIN’T NO TOMORROWS, is a multi-threaded drama portraying the tangled emotional dynamics of a group of six highschoolers as they reach the age of sexual awareness.

Hotaru

The critically-garlanded Naomi Kawase emerged as the vanguard for the new wave of women filmmakers in Japan after becoming the youngest winner of Caméra d’Or award for best new director at Cannes Film Festival in 1997 for her film SUZAKU. Her feature THE MOURNING FOREST received the Grand Prix at the same festival in 2007, while this year she received the Golden Coach Award for life achievement. Raindance will be screening the new 2009 edit of her rarely seen 2001 film HOTARU, a naturalistically-shot romantic drama between a stripper and traditional craftsman played out against the four seasons in the scenic Nara region where Kawase lives.

Mime-Mime

Yukiko Sode’s MIME-MIME (2008) was one of the discoveries of last year’s Pia Film Festival, launched in 1977 to promote new talent in the world of independent filmmaking. An eccentric portrait of a fractious young woman, Makoto, who lives alone, has a relationship with her mother and sister that borders on downright hostility and plays dangerous sexual games with her married former high-school teacher, it is a distinctive and promising debut.

Raindance will also present a program of three short films from the PEACHES FESTIVAL, an annual event now in its third year organised by Atsuko Ohno (the producer of Raindance Best Feature winner in 2004, MAREBITO: THE STRANGER FROM AFAR, directed by Takashi Shimizu) in conjunction with the Film School of Tokyo to promote first-time women directors. The films are EMERGER, BUNNY IN A HOVEL and CSIKSPOST.

Alongside this year’s special focus on Women Directors, Raindance will feature UK premiers of five other recent Japanese titles, including the epic LOVE EXPOSURE, an unpredictable and near indescribable tour-de-force from maverick director Sion Sono (SUICIDE CIRCLE, EXTE), which won the FIPRESCI Prize and Caligari Film Award at this year’s Berlin Film Festival and the audience award at the New York Asian Film Festival.

Lalapipo

Following on from the successful screenings last year of Miki Satoshi’s ADRIFT IN TOKYO and TURTLES ARE SURPRISINGLY FAST SWIMMERS, comes the director’s latest comic romp INSTANT SWAMP. With a script by Tetsuya Nakashima (KAMIKAZE GIRLS, MEMORIES OF MATSUKO), Masayuki Miyano’s LALAPIPO offers an uproarious and vibrant comic portrait of those at the heart of Japan’s outlandish sex industry.

Vacation

In Hajime Kadoi’s startling drama VACATION, a middle-aged prison guard on death row volunteers to act as a “supporter” during the execution of a condemned prisoner, in order to receive a week’s break from work to go on honeymoon with a bride he barely knows, while in Yasunobu Takahashi’s LOCKED OUT, a six-year-old boy crosses paths with a man on the run and besieged by violent visions.

Tokachi Tsuchiya’s eye-popping documentary A NORMAL LIFE PLEASE blows the lid on the Japanese government’s gradual easing of labour regulations as an overworked truck driver and his family are menaced by a yakuza gang hired by his own employers after he joins his workers union, while the insightful US-Japanese co-production of BEETLE QUEEN CONQUERS TOKYO looks at Japan’s relationship to the insect world.

A Normal Life Please

Outside of the Way Out East section, the Homegrown UK strand will showcase great British filmmaking talent, including the European Premiere of DOWN TERRACE “Ken Loach meets The Sopranos”- attended by Director Ben Wheatley and cast Julia Deakin (HOT FUZZ, SHAUN OF THE DEAD, SPACED) and David Schaal (CLUBBED, KIDULTHOOD, THE OFFICE). The Documentary Strand includes contentious films such as PLAYING COLUMBINE by Danny Ledonne, which raises moral questions surrounding the shoot to kill video games inspired by the Columbine High School massacre in 1999. UNTIL THE LIGHT TAKES US provides a fascinating look at the violence and scandal that rocked the Norwegian Black Metal scene in the early 90s. Darkthrone’s Nocturno Culto will make a rare appearance to DJ at the post-screening party.

Until the Light Takes Us

Sitting on this year’s stellar jury is: Riz Ahmed (Shifty, The Road To Guantanamo), writer/director Armando Iannucci (The Day Today, I’m Alan Partridge, In The Loop), Peter Bradshaw, film critic (The Guardian); actress Kerry Fox (Bright Star, Shallow Grave); director Momoko Ando (Kakera); Billy Childish: artist, musician, poet, writer, filmmaker; Christine Langan, Creative Director, BBC Films; writer and documentary filmmaker Jon Ronson (The Men Who Stare At Goats, Stanley Kubrick’s Boxes); Jamie Graham – Assistant Editor, Total Film; Julia Brown – Commercial Director, Apollo Cinemas; Producer Andy Williams and legendary musician/actor Tom Waits.

The festival will be held at the Apollo Cinema, Regent Street, London, between 30 Sept – 11 October 2009.

Tickets, festival passes and more details are all on the Raindance website.