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29
Mar

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

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

Posted at 18:36 on 29 March 2010

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02
Sep

Titles Announced for London’s Raindance Film Festival, 30 September – 11 October 2009

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.

Posted at 0:01 on 02 September 2009

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