Jasper Sharp : Yasunobu Takahashi

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02
Aug

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!

Posted at 17:10 on 02 August 2010

Filed under news.

17
Jul

A new look for my website, and plus info on Shinsedai and Masao Adachi

Facebook seems to do it all the time, so why shouldn’t I? Yes, you’ve probably noticed, my website has just been given a makeover by its wonderful designers at Go Logic, and should now be even better. Well, I can’t speak for content of course, but you’ll notice that as well as the new improved cleaner layout, there’s also a little heart-shaped button at the bottom right hand side of each entry which, like Facebook, allows you to ‘like’ my posts, if you have read and found them interesting yet don’t have the time or inclination to pass comment on them. Basically it’s a way of me knowing if anyone is actually reading all this stuff, or whether I am just pissing in the wind trying to get my opinions out there. There’s also a pretty nifty animated tag-cloud which I’m rather fond of, which spins around to give a better idea of the sort of subjects I’ve been covering rather than having to root around in my archives.

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!

Posted at 18:02 on 17 July 2010

Filed under news.

18
Jun

Full programme for 2nd Annual Shinsedai Festival, Toronto, announced!

shinsedai_lineup

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^this 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

Posted at 15:45 on 18 June 2010

Filed under news.

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