by Marc Saint-Cyr

As of this writing, the 2nd annual Shinsedai Cinema Festival has come to an end. It was very much a success that exceeded last year’s festival, with audience turnouts generally ranging from solid to absolutely fantastic, a wonderful selection of special guests who had traveled to Toronto to promote their films and an excellent lineup of features and shorts. I saw most of the films over the past three days and certainly experienced far more pleasant surprises than disappointments.

On Friday, July 23rd, only two films were shown, but both were quite enjoyable and, oddly enough, fit an old-fashioned, classic motif. The first film was actually an older film from 1933 – “The Water Magician,” which was directed by universally acknowledged master Kenji Mizoguchi and is considered to be one of the first independently financed films from Japan, thus making it a fitting choice for Shinsedai. What made this screening truly special was the participation of the Toronto-based experimental group Vowls, who provided musical accompaniment for the film. The end result was a mesmerizing fusion of the band’s ambient music and Mizoguchi’s heartbreaking film – an all-around unforgettable experience. Following it was 2009′s “Island of Dreams” by Tetsuichiro Tsuta, who shot the film on 16 mm and edited it by hand. Such work methods very much fit the film itself, which pays homage to the noir works of Akira Kurosawa and Seijun Suzuki while spinning a tale about a frustrated youth who strikes back against forces damaging the environment.

“Confessions of a Dog” director Gen Takahashi introduces his film as Shinsedai co-programmer Chris MaGee looks on.

Saturday, July 24th began with a screening of Naito Takatsugu’s “The Dark Harbour,” a wonderfully deadpan comedy about a lonesome fisherman and his relationship with a woman and child who hide in his closet. It was preceded by Shoh Kataoka’s short “Jellyfish Boy,” a touching little film about youth and friendship. Yasunobu Takahashi’s debut film “Locked Out” also concerns a little boy, but in a more harrowing scenario: young Keita wanders from his mother in a shopping centre parking lot and mistakenly gets into the car belonging to Hiroshi, a mysterious drifter who may have committed a crime. Though the narrative’s focus distractingly wavers between the troubled young man, the little boy and the latter’s worried mother, the film still contains an admirable amount of style, indicating much promise for Takahashi in the future. The short that screened before it was “That’s All,” Hiroshi Iwanaga’s portrait of a depressed teenage girl and her relationship with her mother.

Next up was the short film “Gunman Champion” from sugarmountain (director Daisuke Sato and producer Takahiro Yamashita) and starring comedian and musician Shaq. It offered a charming, Chaplin-esque romp through an amusement park – an altogether different viewing experience than Katsuya Tomita’s “Off Highway 20,” an often grim portrayal of paint thinner-huffing, pachinko-addicted misfits trapped in a suffocating existence. Things picked up considerably afterwards with possibly the main highlight of the festival: Gen Takahashi’s epic-scaled police drama “Confessions of a Dog.” While it focuses on one cop in particular as he sinks deeper into corruption, the film is really an ensemble piece, gathering together curious journalists and morally questionable officers in its eye-opening, consistently compelling exploration of the darker aspects of Japanese law enforcement. The final film screened that day was “Late Bloomer” director Go Shibata’s experimental debut film “NN-891102.”

Chris MaGee presides over a panel discussion about independent filmmaking in Japan

Kicking things off on Sunday, July 25th, was Takuya Fukushima’s science fiction film “Our Brief Eternity,” which I saw at the Nippon Connection film festival. Tokachi Tsuchiya’s documentary “A Normal Life, Please!” and the accompanying experimental short “Remnants” by Reiko Tahara brought viewers back down to reality – particularly the former, which focuses on cement truck driver Nobukazu Kaikura and the brutal conditions that his employers subject him to, among them inhumanly long working hours and violations of safety and health regulations. Tsuchiya’s film follows Kaikura’s efforts to join a union, stand up to the bullying bosses that run his company and gain the normal life of the film’s title. Afterwards, there was Kotaru Wajima’s lyrical short “Invitation” followed by Marie Miyayama’s Japanese-German co-production “The Red Spot.” Following a young woman who journeys to Germany to find the place where her parents and infant brother died, this film was a beautifully shot, emotionally revealing look at personal history and multicultural relationships.

One of my personal favorites of the festival was Tetsuaki Matsue’s “Live Tape,” which won the Nippon Digital Award at this year’s Nippon Connection festival. Shot in one take, it follows indie musician Kenta Maeno as he walks through Tokyo’s Musashino district on New Year’s Day in 2009, performing his songs along the way. The film is great for the music alone, yet the way the camera explores the city spaces, captures people passing by the strumming musician and generously shares with the viewer little moments both planned and improvised all combine to form a fantastic experience. The final films shown in the festival were Satoshi Nagano’s comical samurai short “The Finishing Touch” and Kota Yoshida’s “Yuriko’s Aroma,” a quirky comedy about a massage therapist’s rocky experiences with love.

It was a fantastic year for Shinsedai, proving not only that Japanese cinema is full of young, undiscovered talents, but that audiences in North America are eager to seize the chance to sample them for themselves.

by Marc Saint-Cyr

Yesterday, the second annual Shinsedai Cinema Fesstival got off to a good start at Toronto’s Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre. It was refreshing to see so many people out to support this event, which was intended by co-programmers Chris MaGee of the Toronto J-Film Pow-Wow and Jasper Sharp of Midnight Eye (who sadly couldn’t make it this year due to the recent arrival of his newborn son, Thorin) to be a showcase of independent Japanese films that are seldom seen in North America. As one of the pictures below shows, it was nearly a full house for the opening films. They consisted of animator Akino Kondoh’s dazzling, black-, white- and red-hued short “Ladybirds’ Requiem,” followed by the very touching and funny “Kakera: A Piece of Our Life” from debut director Momoko Ando based upon the Erika Sakurazawa manga “Love Vibes.” Many notable guests were in attendance for the films and opening reception, including the JCCC’s executive director James Heron, Kondoh, Ando, “Confessions of a Dog” director Gen Takahashi, “Locked Out” director Yasunobu Takahashi, comedian and “Gunman Champion” star Shaq, VCinema Podcast host Jon Jung, who I’ll be guest hosting some podcast reviews of the festival with in the days to come, and, most surprisingly, acclaimed Canadian filmmaker Deepa Mehta.

Scroll below to check out photos from the event, and stay tuned for more coverage of Shinsedai 2010!

“Gunman Champion” star Shaq

JCCC executive director James Heron, “Kakera: A Piece of Our Life” director Momoko Ando and Deepa Mehta

The audience for “Ladybirds’ Requiem” and “Kakera: A Piece of Our Life”

Shinsedai co-programmer and Toronto J-Film Pow-Wow editor-in-chief Chris MaGee

The very first event planned for the 2nd annual Shinsedai Cinema Festival was the screening that will be held on Friday evening – Kenji Mizoguchi’s 1933 silent classic The Water Magician. Both Shinsedai programmers Jasper Sharp and Chris MaGee knew they wanted to hold a special screening for the second year of the festival as a thank you to the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre community who were so generous in making the Shinsedai Cinema Festival possible. It was internationally renowned film curator, historian and author Jasper Sharp who made the leap and proposed a screening of a silent classic with a modern musical twist.

“Japanese silent films are rarely screened outside of Japan,” explains Sharp “but along with Teinosuke Kinugasa’s Page of Madness, [The Water Magician] 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.” Those lucky enough to attend this once in a lifetime screening of The Water Magician in the JCCC’s Kobayashi Hall will not only see the genesis of Mizoguchi’s theme of the individual female versus the strict hierarchy of Japanese society, but one of the very first examples of an indepedent film production from Japan. The Water Magician‘s lead actress Takako Irie was the premier film starlet of her time. So popular were her screen appearances and so bankable were her films that at the age of only 22 Irie founded her own production company, Irie Productions, which operated outside of the established studio sytem of the time. Beyond the historical importance of The Water Magician is simply a sumptuous cinematic experience. “It looks absolutely gorgeous,” says Sharp, “with Mizoguchi’s atmospheric tracking shots and Kyoko Izumi’s vaguely ero-guro style carnival milieu making this a must-see.”

Adding to this classic film is a live musical score composed and performed by Toronto experimental quartet Vowls. “We are all big Mizoguchi fans and are really pleased with the opportunity to have a posthumous conversation with him using our own very personal language,” explains Vowls’ member Brandon Hocura, the man responsible for composing this score specifically for this Shinsedai Cinema Festival screening. “Scoring the hour and a half silent film has been very challenging, especially given how chatty this silent film is! This is of course due to the film’s reliance on the benshi, or narrator, who’s role is precisely what we have replaced. The focus of our score is to enhance the emotional content of the narrative and to still allow the film to retain its own unique voice. We are very pleased with the results and hope you are too. ”

We hope you all join us for this singular cinematic and musical event co-presented by our valued community partner the Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival on Friday, July 24th at 7:00Pm at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre. We know it’s something cinephiles and music lovers alike won’t want to miss.

One of the biggest discoveries of the inaugural year of the Shinsedai Cinema Festival were the surreal and humourous short films by Yoshihiro Ito titled Vortex and Others. Now, due to a last minute scheduling change for our 2nd year we are proud to announce the return of Yoshihiro Ito to the Shinsedai Cinema Festival.

Due to contractual issues both DOME Animation and Yu Katsumata’s Oh! Otsuka Drugstore will only be screened in the Jishu Eiga Room once. Both Kazuhiro Goshima’s Different Cities and the Yuki Kawamura Trilogy will continue to be screened multiple times and now joining them will be Yoshihiro Ito’s 1999 55-minute blackly comic romance Have ‘Em Fresh: The Laughing Stomach.

Have ‘Em Fresh: The Laughing Stomach uses food as a way of exploring sensuality, sexuality and emotional and physical possession. Salaryman Sunahara likes his food and so does his new girlfriend, the oddly sensual Yoshino. “If I was born a fish I would want to be eaten by you.” are her forst words to him. Not your typical pick-up line, but then again Yoshino isn’t your typical woman. Their new relationship revolves around one gourmet meal after another comprised of a cornucopia of exotic ingredients… all except for sea urchin, a food Yoshino seems downright frightened of, and one that she insists Sunahara never eats even though it is one of his favorites.

You can read Chris MaGee’s full review of Yoshihiro Ito’s Have ‘Em Fresh: The Laughing Stomach at The Toronto J-Film Pow-Wow. A revised screening schedule for the Jishu Eiga Room will be posted during the festival. Our apologies for any inconvenience this last minute scheduling change may have caused.

If the special guest filmmakers coming to the 2nd annual Shinsedai Cinema Festival weren’t enough now we have a sixth guest making their way to join us for the festivities. Comedian, actor and singer Shaq, star of sugarmountain’s Gunman Champion (screening with Katsuya Tomita’s Off Highway 20 on Saturday, July 24th at 3:45PM), will be our special guest at the festival. Shaq is a one man whirlwind as is obvious from the trailer/ music video for Gunman Champion (below), plus he and his band were featured in our opening night film Kakera: A Piece of Our Life. Yet one more reason why the 2nd annual Shinsedai Cinema Festival will be a must see/ must attend event!

The Shinsedai Cinema Festival is very proud to partner with the Canadian Film Centre for a panel discussion on Saturday, July 24th titled Jishu Eiga: How Independent Japanese Filmmakers Challenge Cultural Imperitives of the Established Japanese Film Industry. Led by Shinsedai Cinema Festival Programmer and Co-director Chris MaGee and including some of the brightest lights of the Japanese indie film scene this lively discussion will cover both the creative and business aspects of filmmaking outside the Japanese studio system today.

From a background of the Japanese film industry and its traditional sempai-kohai mentoring concept to individual explorations of character development, working with actors, the importance editing, storytelling and screenwriting this unique panel discussion will be enlightening for both filmmakers and lay people alike.

Special guests will include four visiting filmmaker presenting their work at this year’s Shinsedai Cinema Festival, The New Generation Japanese Film Festival – debut feature filmmaker Momoko Ando, director of the same-sex romance Kakera: A Piece of Our Life; veteran of Japan’s indoe film scene Gen Takahashi, director of the gritty and controversial police epic Confessions of a Dog; writer director Yasunobu Takahashi, creator of the genre-defying thriller Locked Out; and award-winning filmmaker Tokachi Tsuchiya, director of the explosive documentary A Normal Life, Please!

Jishu Eiga: How Independent Japanese Filmmakers Challenge Cultural Imperitives of the Established Japanese Film Industry will take place Saturday, July 24th at 10:30AM at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre in Room 2A on the second floor and is FREE to attend. We look forward to seeing you all there.

Coming out to the 2nd annual Shinsedai Cinema Festival doesn’t just mean getting to see great new films from Japan. It also means that audiences will be able to catch some great cultural events taking place at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre. One of these is taking place at the JCCC’s Gendai Gallery.

Throughout the festival weekend audiences will be able to experience the Gendai Gallery‘s New Creators Series 03: Bungalow Colony. Curated by Daisuke Takeya and Siya Chen this group show features the work of six Toronto-based artists – Aleksandra Rdest, Reiko Shimizu, Seema Narula, Steve Newberry, Myung-Sun Kim and Tom Ngo – all of whom explore themes of settling and the portability of home. What is home? A place that one can settle, belong, escape to and feel comfort in? A set of portable values and beliefs that one can carry wherever they go? How do the notions of “home” bring us together? These questions are asked in the work of all of these creators.

For more information on Bungalow Colony and the Gendai Gallery please visit their official website and make sure to take in this great show between films at Shinsedai 2010.

Soon it will be July and that means that the 2nd annual Shinsedai Cinema Festival is going to be just around the corner. Tickets and passes for this year’s festival are now on sale, but besides the great films in this year’s line-up the Shinsedai Cinema Festival will also give Toronto audiences a chance to meet and speak with some of Japan’s most talented filmmakers.

We are proud to announce our full list of special guests who will be joining us at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre for the 2nd annual Shinsedai Cinema Festival:

Momoko Ando (upper left), director of our opening night film Kakera: A Piece of Our Life. Ando, the daughter of actor/ director Eiji Okuda and essayist and TV personality Kazu Ando, has proven herself to be one of Japan’s most exciting young filmmakers with her screen adaptation of Erika Sakurazawa’s manga Love Vibes about the magical and often rocky romance between two young women.

Gen Takahashi (upper right), director of Confessions of a Dog. A veteran of the Asian independent film scene Takahashi’s gritty 3-hour epic drama about corruption in Japanese law enforcement has been showered with praise at festival stops around the globe while being the subject of fierce controversy in his home country of Japan. The Q&A after the Canadian premiere of Confessions of a Dog is sure to be memorable.

Tokachi Tsuchiya (below right), director of A Normal Life, Please! This riveting documentary about one man’s fight for fair treatment at his workplace has won Best Documentary at both the 6th annual Dubai International Film Festival and the 17th annual Raindance Film Festival in London. We are proud to have Tsuchiya here for the North American Premiere of his film.

Yasunobu Takahashi, director of Locked Out. First time feature filmmaker Yasunobu Takahashi manages to do what many seasoned directors would find daunting – balancing an edge of your seat psychological thriller with a heartfelt road movie. Locked Out has been featured at festivals in New York, Yubari, Hokkaido, Frankfurt, Barcelona and now Toronto.

Akino Kondoh, director of Ladybirds’ Requiem. Artist and animator Akino Kondoh joined us for our inaugural Shinsedai Cinema Festival last year with her short film The Evening Traveling and we are honoured not only to have her second animated short open this year’s festival, but also to have her 2004 painting Red Fishes as our official poster image.

We look forward to having all our special guests with us between July 22nd and July 25th, and we look forward to Toronto film audiences being able to enjoy their remarkable work.

If you’ve been following the updates and making your list of films that you want to catch at the 2nd annual Shinsedai Cinema Festival – The New Generation Japanese Film Festival – (like Momoko Ando’s “Kakera: A Piece of Our Life” seen above) then today’s the day you’ve been waiting for. Starting today tickets and festival passes are available for purchase!

ALL INDIVIDUAL TICKETS for The Shinsedai Cinema Festival are $12.00 (EXCEPT for the special screening of Kenji Mizoguchi’s “The Water Magician” w/ live soundtrack by Vowls, tickets $16.00), but those of you who are eager to see many or even all of the films at the festival may want to consider the following two special passes:

5-FILM PASS: This pass entitles its holder access to any five ticketed slots at The Shinsedai Cinema Festival for only $50.00, an overall savings of $22.00!

DELUXE PASS: This pass entitles its holder access to all 14 ticketed slots at The Shinsedai Cinema Festival. That’s a whole weekend of great films for only $105.00, a savings of $51.00!

What’s best about both the 5-Film Pass and the Deluxe Pass is that they get you FREE ACCESS to films screening in our second screening space, The Jishu Eiga Room. (Individual entry to the Jishu Eiga Room is only $4.00.)

Tickets and Passes can be purchased at the following locations:

Eyesore Cinema
801 Queen Street West, 2nd Floor
*THIS LOCATION CASH ONLY*

Things Japanese
128 Harbord Street
*THIS LOCATION CASH ONLY*

The Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre
6 Garamond Court
Call (416) 441-2345 ext 222 to purchase by Visa or Mastercard

Or you can buy you Shinsedai 2010 tickets and passes ONLINE at Ticketweb.

We hope to see you all at the festival next month!

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.

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 the 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!