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…

Peaches organizer Atsuko Ohno raising a kampai with Vortex director Yoshihiro Ito

It’s always pretty tough launching a new film festival, especially one that doesn’t deal with cult or genre material, but all in all, attendances were good, the comments on the response forms positive, and everyone seemed to have a great time, myself included. I was mightily impressed with the calibre of the audience, who seemed intelligent and receptive to new and sometimes challenging material. I guess the choice of venue, the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre was a key factor in this: the audience members either had firsthand experience of Japan or a genuine interest in the culture, meaning that films such as Yutaka Tsuchiya’s The New God, Yasutomo Chikuma’s Now, I… and Hiroki Iwabuchi’s Freeter’s Distress got the audiences they deserved and provoked animated discussions after the screenings. A lot of people really had their eyes opened by these titles, which show a completely different side of Japan to the one portrayed in the films that usually circulate in the West.

Akinoh Kondo's animated short The Evening Traveling

On the other side of the coin, we had more experimental material. Yoshihiro Ito’s Vortex and Others shorts programme and Aruongaku, a concert film on the avant-garde filmmaker/musician Masakatsu Takagi were met with a unanimously positive response. (I should add to European readers with a taste in such material, many of these films received their first international screening at the world’s greatest Japanese film festival, Nippon Connection in Frankfurt).

With festival co-organizer Chris Magee, and Thunderfish star Junko Kimoto at opening ceremony.

We were also lucky so many of the filmmakers came out to Toronto to join us too. Yasutomo Chikuma, Yoshihiro Ito, Peaches festival organiser Atsuko Ohno, animator/illustrator Akino Kondoh, and the Thunderfish-gumi of director Touru Hano, cinematographer Tetsuhiro Kato, and leading lady Junko Kimoto (pictured here quaffing sake with me and Chris Magee during the opening ceremony) all had a great time chatting with the audience, and participating in the panel discussion about the state of independent cinema. It’s a near certainty that we’ll be able to build upon this success for next year, with an even bigger and bolder programme, but I should add at this point that none of this would have been possible without the generous sponsorship of Subaru Canada (oh that UK-based companies were as generous!), the guiding hand of the unsung hero behind the scenes James Heron (rather like the cat in Hong Kong Phooey) and his colleagues at the JCCC, as well as the smiling, ever-helpful legions of volunteers. And of course, a huge thanks to Chris Magee of Toronto’s own J-Film Pow-Wow for his sterling work in bringing this all together in such a short time, and my personal thanks to him and the delightful Polly for putting me up for the weekend and keeping the whiskey flowing. Until the next time…

From Yoshihiro Ito's Vortex and Others programme.

Well, I am only about 12 hours away from hopping on my plane to Toronto for the inaugural Shinsedai fest, and I must say, I’m pretty excited about the whole thing. This week I had three phone interviews with Canadian-based journos in the space of 24 hours, so one certainly can’t complain about the lack of press coverage for the event. One only hopes it translates into audiences figures of course, but I’m just excited about seeing how the films I selected go down, and getting a chance to watch a whole load of stuff I haven’t seen yet, and of course the opportunity to see old friends and hopefully make a whole load more, one of the eternal joys of film festivals.

I’ve not much more to add at this point, but hopefully I’ll get a chance to post updates and news about the festival during what looks set to be a very active weekend. If you can’t make it anywhere near Toronto, at least you can experience it second hand…

Less than a fortnight to go now till the first annual Shinsedai Festival, a weekend event I helped organize with Chris MaGee of the Toronto J-Film Pow-Wow to celebrate the best in new indie talent currently working in Japan, and I must say, I’m mighty excited. It’s been about 15 years since I was last in Toronto, and I have a very hazy recollection of the place: all I remember is that they had black squirrels and hot dogs the size you could take someone’s eye out with them if you weren’t careful.

I, of course, am going to have to rely heavily on a chaperone for the weekend I’m there, but Toronto-ites interested in attending will probably know how to get to the venue where it’s all happening, the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre, located at 6 Garamond Court in Toronto, Ontario.

Hottentot Apron: A Sketch

And wow, should you attend if you get a chance!? There’s a full weekend of screenings, kicking off on Friday, 21^st August, at 7.30pm, with last year’s Pia Film Festival Grand Prix Winner, Naked of Defenses, directed by Masahide Ichii, which is followed directly by Kei Shichiri’s intriguingly-titled Hottentot Apron: A Sketch. I know nothing about this second one, which was one of Chris’ selection, one of the reasons why the event is going to be such a revelation. Chris and I have programmed the whole event about 50/50, and I know he keeps his ear pretty close to the ground, but effectively every one of these titles is getting its Canadian premiere, and these are the sort of films that seem to fall under the radar of most festivals, so you can be rest assured, there’s going to be some revelations.

Thunderfish

The full schedule has been up online for a while now, so I won’t go over it here, but I will say I am delighted we’re screening Thunderfish, which was a big hit at Raindance a couple of years back, and features some stunning cinematography and a loopy set design quite unlike anything else I’ve seen from Japan in recent years – I’m happy to say that director Touru Hano, lead actress Junko Kimoto and cinematographer Tetsuhiro Kato will also be around for the weekend. Other top tips are Yuki Tanada’s hilarious feature debut Moon and Cherry, playing under its new North American retitling as Electric Button, Yutaka Tsuchiya’s enlightening documentary and a personal favourite of mine, The New God, and Yoshihiro Ito’s stunning shorts program, Vortex and Others – Ito will also be around the festival, along with his main muse and star of several of these works, Natsumi Seto. I’m not usually a big fan of shorts programs, but these are really something. Ito knows how to use the 8mm and 16mm formats perfectly, and these decidedly trippy films are a must if you’re into the likes of Seijun Suzuki and David Lynch. There’s a full interview on the main homepage of the festival, if you haven’t seen it already.

There’s a whole host of guests going to be around the festival, including Yasutomo Chikuma (Now, I…), Atsuko Ohno (producer of the Peaches shorts program) and yours truly, who will be signing copies of Behind the Pink Curtain for anyone that wants one signed. A damn fine weekend lies ahead, so I suggest you all get signing up for your tickets right away!

One thing I am disappointed about though is that I’m arriving too late to catch the Shinsedai tie-in screenings with the monthly screening even Film Fort, who are going to be showing a whole load of recent experimental Japanese animation on Tuesday, August 18th to whet everyone’s appetites.

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