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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

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20
Apr

Update from Nippon Connection

Nippon Connection officially came to an end on Sunday evening, although you’d hardly know it. As I write, there are currently still around 40+ guests hanging around Frankfurt trying to work out how and when they’re going to get home, myself included. On the one hand, there’s a kind of feeling that the festival is still ongoing, minus the films of course, as everyone rallies round to make the best of a bad situation, huddled around in bars trying to ignore the obvious realities of the situation. On the other, as boredom sets in, it’s only a matter of time before we all get sick of the site of one another, tired of saying our final farewells only to find everyone back at the festival centre next day awaiting new updated information about our imminent departures.

Of course, things could be a lot worse. If the volcano had blown a few days earlier, there would have been no guests, no prints and basically no festival, hardly a fitting celebration for Nippon Connection’s tenth year. I’m actually in a better situation than most of the others here who need to get back to Japan or North America, because in the worst case scenario, I can always hitchhike up to Calais and stand on the beach, as in Atonement, amassed with all the other Brits awaiting repatriation. And we should spare a thought for the poor jishu eiga director who has been grounded for the past 5 days in Istanbul, where he was meant to be transferring flight…

I have to say, I’ve been fairly in the dark about the whole situation until today. I’d not read any newspaper coverage nor seen any TV reports about the volcano in the English language. The only screens I’ve been looking at have been filled with Japanese films. I knew over the weekend that the whole incident was going to be a damn inconvenience, but buried my head in the sand as I realised that there wasn’t a whole lot I could do about it and didn’t want it to affect my enjoyment of the festival. Now it looks like I’m here for a couple more days, at least I’ve got my laptop, internet access, and a few DVDs to watch, so things could be a lot worse.

Nippon Connection Audience Award winner Oblivion Island: Haruka and the Magic Mirror, directed by Shinsuke Sato and produced by Production IG

Well, that brings me to the festival, which is, after all, the reason we are all here, and though we’re all going to look back and laugh in a year or so on the events that overtook the tenth Nippon Connection, the festival was memorable for other reasons too, namely the films. This year, I was accorded the honour of sitting on the jury for the Nippon Digital Award, alongside Bernt Brehmer and Dr Roland Domenig. It is the first year Nippon Connection has had a competition for the digital selection, which has got stronger and stronger over the years and at present provides the best showcase anywhere in the world for some of the most important discoveries in the world of Japanese indie filmmaking, documentary and experimental animation, courtesy of the pioneering efforts of programmers Alex Zahlten and Christiane Borchert. Basically, if you’re into the edgier, more innovative side of Japanese film, Nippon Connection’s annual selection is second to none. This meant, however, that I had to spend much of the fest in the digital screening room, so never got the chance to watch any of the more mainstream fare playing on the big screen. Some of these I’d seen before, but I didn’t catch any of the films that got the audience award this year: in third place was Hitoshi Matsumoto’s Symbol; second was Shuichi Okita’s The Chef of South Polar; with the main prize going to Oblivion Island: Haruka and the Magic Mirror, a 3DCG animation from Production I.G. directed by Shinsuke Sato – well, I never saw that one coming, but the Nippon Connection audience has always been an unpredictable lot.

Noriko Eguchi in Kota Yoshida's Yuriko’s Aroma

There was some great stuff playing in the Nippon Digital selection however, including Daishi Matsunaga’s documentary on the bizarre transgender performance artist Pyuupiru, which you can read all about on Midnight Eye and Yu Irie’s 8000 Miles Part 2: Girls Rappers, which I mentioned in my Yubari report. However, we were all particularly impressed with Kota Yoshida’s Yuriko’s Aroma, a slick and sexy comedy-drama starring Noriko Eguchi of Moon and Cherry fame, playing a not dissimilar role as an aromatherapist with a particularly sensitive olfactory organ who develops an unhealthy obsession with her employer’s sweaty teenage nephew.

Pyuupiru, in Daishi Matsunaga's film of the same name

It wasn’t the winner, but we gave it a special mention anyway, and hopefully I’ll find a way of bringing it to the UK before the year’s out. The man of the moment, though, was Tetsuaki Matsue, who impressed me a lot about ten years ago with his promising documentary debut, Annyong Kimchee, detailing his own “coming out” to his friends about his Korean ancestry. I’d always felt that Matsue had subsequently rather coasted along on his talents, but it seems he’s finally come of age this year. It’s true, his Annyong Yumika, also in competition this year, his portrait of the legendary AV and pink actress Yumika Hayashi, who tragically died in 2005 and who is perhaps best known with foreign audiences for her role in Shinja Imaoka’s Lunchbox (2003), wasn’t a million miles away from his usual style. It manifested both the strengths and weaknesses of Matsue’s previous films, though it was engrossing enough, and for those who don’t know much about Japan’s sex film industry and its surprise hidden links with Korea, it was certainly a revelation. Still, it wasn’t quite winning material, so it’s just as well that Matsue also had another film in competition, the near work of genius that is Live Tape. I’m going to be covering this film in a whole lot more detail on Midnight Eye very soon, but for the moment, the nutshell description is this is a single-shot film of the musician Kenta Maeno (also at the fest) as he wanders around Kichijoji performing with his guitar. It’s actually a whole lot more than that too, but basically we were all agreed this was the most innovative, refreshing and inspiring uses of a single DV tape we’d seen in a long, long time and a much-deserved winner. Matsue’s prize is the subtitles of his next film provided completely free of charge, courtesy of the Japanese Visualmedia Translation Academy (JVTA). It should be finished before the year’s out – there’ll be more info on this nearer its release, but for now I’ll just say it is going to be set around Tokyo’s celebrated otaku enclave of Akihabara.

Star of the show: Kenta Maeno in Tetsuaki Matsue's Live Tape

Unfortunately I didn’t get my camera out for any of the festival, so you’ll have to make do with stills of some of the films I’ve mentioned for now. Anyway, this is me signing off for the day. Can’t get back to London for the Takahiko Iimura films, but it doesn’t really matter as he can’t make it either, which leaves me with no other choice other than to pop out for a coffee and a Bratwurst, and try to amuse myself while I await further news on my travel plans.

Posted at 13:08 on 20 April 2010

Filed under news.

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