2/'21 21st Century Japan P.1

EVENT: 21ST CENTURY JAPAN: FILMS FROM 2001-2020
DATES: February 5-25, 2021
VENUE: Online

As Japan’s film industry enters its third decade in the new millennium, this 30-film ACA Cinema Project online series takes a look back at the last 20 years of Japanese cinema to celebrate some of the most remarkable narrative fiction films and filmmakers that define the era. Covering a wide range of production styles and genres—from small budget independent debuts to festival favorites and award-winning major studio releases—this diverse slate of feature and short films offers a guided tour of modern Japanese cinema, including special spotlights dedicated to the work of Kiyoshi Kurosawa and a selection of breakout films by up-and-coming filmmakers. Co-presented by the Agency for Cultural Affairs in collaboration with Visual Industry Promotion Organization.

Event Title: A Conversation with Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Speaker: Kiyoshi Kurosawa(Director), Kent Jones（Writer/Director)
Moderator: Abi Sakamoto（Institut français du Japon）

Event Title: "What Is Japanese Cinema in the 21st Century?" The Filmmakers' Perspective Part 1 Directors
Speaker: Sion Sono (Red Post on Escher Street, 2020), Yukiko Mishima (Shape of Red, 2020), Kei Ishikawa (Listen to the Universe, 2019), Shuichi Okita (Mori, the Artist’s Habitat, 2018), Satoko Yokohama (The Actor, 2016), Shinya Tsukamoto (Fires on the Plain, 2015), Kazuya Shiraishi (The Devil’s Path, 2013), Nobuhiro Yamashita (The Drudgery Train, 2012), Yuki Tanada (One Million Yen Girl, 2008), Naoko Ogigami (Yoshino’s Barber Shop, 2004), Isshin Inudo (Josee, the Tiger and the Fish, 2003), Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Bright Future, 2003; Real, 2013; Journey to the Shore, 2015)

Event Title: "What Is Japanese Cinema in the 21st Century?" A Film Critic's Perspective Part 2 Critic
Speaker: Mark Schilling(film critic)

Title: Red Post on Escher Street
Director: Sono Sion
2020/148 min./ Japan

[STORY] When filmmaker Tadashi Kobayashi (Tatsuhiro Yamaoka) begins to hold open auditions for a new studio-sponsored film, a wave of experienced and aspiring actors scramble to apply, yearning for a chance to work with the genius director. Behind the scenes, however, Kobayashi struggles to finish the script on schedule and the production quickly spirals out of control. A funny, chaotic and consistently interesting showcase of Sion Sono’s versatile talents, Red Post on Escher Street is a return-to-roots film for the director that develops, in typical Sono fashion, into a boldly subversive affair—a brazenly tongue-in-cheek portrait of the Japanese film industry that harkens to Sono’s own career as one of the most distinctive voices in world cinema. Co-presented with Grasshopper Film.

Event Title: Q&A with Sion Sono
Speaker: Sion Sono

Title: Shape of Red
Director: Yukiko Mishima
2020/123 min./ Japan

[STORY] When a young housewife and mother named Toko (Kaho) has a chance run-in with her old flame Akihiko (Satoshi Tsumabuki) at a party, she finds herself suddenly thrown into a passionate love affair that reawakens long-suppressed desires and threatens to dismantle her seemingly perfect life. The latest film by veteran director Yukiko Mishima (Dear Etranger)—adapted from a 2012 Rio Shimamoto novel by Mishima with co-writer Chihiro Ikeda—Shape of Red is a beautifully lensed, thoughtful and sensuous melodrama that questions the cost of individual freedom and the roles women are expected to play in contemporary Japanese society.

Event Title: Q&A with Yukiko Mishima
Speaker: Yukiko Mishima

Title: Listen to the Universe
Director: Kei Ishikawa
2019/119 min./ Japan

[STORY] In this domestic box office hit adapted from the award-winning, bestselling novel by Riku Okuda, four young classical pianists compete in a high stakes international piano competition as they manage their respective friendships, insecurities and desires to win. An inspiring multi-character drama that celebrates the intrinsic power of music, Listen to the Universe features a who’s who of some of the most talked about young actors in Japan, including: Mayu Matsuoka (Shoplifters); Tori Matsuzaka (The Journalist); Win Morisaki (Ready Player One); and Oji Suzuka, who made his screen debut with this film and won the Japan Academy Film Prize for Newcomer of the Year along with Morisaki. Directed with visual flair by rising director Kei Ishikawa (Gokuroku: Traces of Sin).

Title: Mori, the Artist’s Habitat
Director: Shuichi Okita
2018/99 min./ Japan

[STORY] In the last 30 years of his long life, reclusive artist Morikazu Kumagai (1880-1977), aka Mori, almost never left his Ikebukuro home. Instead, he took pleasure in a daily routine of observing the cats, fish, birds and insects living in his luxuriant garden for hours, eventually rendering them into his distinct paintings. Featuring a colorful cast headlined by screen legends Tsutomu Yamazaki (Tampopo) and Kirin Kiki (Still Walking), this delightful, offbeat comedy directed by Shuichi Okita (The Mohican Comes Home) imagines a day in the life of Mori and Hideko, his wife of over 50 years, as they entertain a throng of welcome and unwelcome visitors, including a pair of condo developers whose encroaching presence signals the end of an era.

Title: The Miracles of the Namiya General Store
Director: Ryuichi Hiroki
2017/129 min./ Japan

[STORY] In 2012, three teenage orphans on the run take refuge in an abandoned small town general store late at night. Before long, a letter dated from 1980 in which the writer asks for advice is dropped through the store’s mail slot, providing the boys a mysterious and miraculous connection to the past. Embarking on a myriad of correspondences across time, the trio gradually discover the store’s special history. Adapted from the popular novel by bestselling mystery author Keigo Higashino, The Miracles of the Namiya General Store is a nostalgia-fueled drama that takes a loving look back to simpler times in Japan to offer hope for the future.

Title: The Actor
Director: Satoko Yokohama
2016/123 min./ Japan

[STORY] Screen actor Takuji Kameoka (Ken Yasuda) built a career from his masterful performances, and he would be a household name if it weren’t for the fact that his filmography consists entirely of bit parts. As the prospect of a breakout role in a foreign arthouse director’s newest work appears, so too does the possibility of winning the heart of a charming izakaya owner (Kumiko Aso) who seems to understand Kameoka’s hidden loneliness. A long-awaited follow-up to her breakout indie feature Bare Essence of Life (2009), director Satoko Yokohama’s fantastical tribute to the film industry spotlights the workaday human magic underlying the gleam of cinema.

Title: Fires on the Plain
Director: Shinya Tsukamoto
2015/87 min./ Japan

[STORY] Departing from his penchant for dystopian cityscapes, Shinya Tsukamoto—director of Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989) and acclaimed pioneer of Japanese cyberpunk—plunges us into the jungles of the Philippines during the end of WWII. Adapted from the classic semi-autobiographical novel by Shohei Ooka (previously adapted by Kon Ichikawa in 1959), Fires on the Plain depicts the degradation of an abandoned, sickly soldier of the Japanese Imperial Army (played by Tsukamoto) as he witnesses, and partakes in, the horrific atrocities of war. Tsukamoto’s updated, visceral take on the source material is a full-throated scream that warns contemporary Japan about the realities of warfare—a warning he heeds every year on the anniversary of the war’s end when cinemas across Japan host revival screenings of this film.

Title: Still the Water
Director: Naomi Kawase
2014/116 min./ Japan

[STORY] In the aftermath of a typhoon, a tattooed body washes ashore on the subtropical Japanese island of Amami-Oshima and is discovered by teenager Kaito (Nijiro Murakami). Meanwhile, his girlfriend Kyoto (Jun Yoshinaga) must deal with the imminent death of her mother, an island shaman. Together, on the cusp of adulthood, the pair struggle to make sense of the cycles of life and death as they seek to understand their place in the world. A poignant and poetic coming-of-age tale, Naomi Kawase’s self-described masterpiece is a culmination of the filmmaker’s impressive career, invested in the exploration of deeply spiritual themes expressed through lush visuals steeped in natural light.

Title: The Devil’s Path
Director: Kazuya Shiraishi
2013/128 min./ Japan

[STORY] When yakuza thug Junji Sudo (actor and musician Pierre Taki) lands behind bars on death row, he seeks out journalist Shuichi Fujii (Takayuki Yamada) in order to publicly reveal the details of three unknown murders and implicate his accomplice—a real estate broker who goes by “Doc” (Lily Franky)—who Sudo insists is the true mastermind behind his crimes. Against his editor’s wishes, Fujii investigates Sudo’s claims and starts to uncover the grisly details of each horrifying murder. Based on true crime cases, The Devil’s Path is a dark vision of mankind’s capacity for evil that catapulted the career of Kazuya Shiraishi, one of the most prolific Japanese directors of the last decade. Please note: This film contains disturbing scenes of graphic violence. Viewer discretion is advised.

Title: The Drudgery Train
Director: Nobuhiro Yamashita
2012/114 min./ Japan

[STORY] Gruff middle school dropout Kanta Kitamachi (Mirai Moriyama) works as a day laborer and spends his money on cheap booze, peep shows and second-hand paperbacks while overdue on his rent. A perpetual loner with no social skills, Kanta unexpectedly hits it off with a new, easy-going co-worker around the same age (Kengo Kora) who tempers Kanta’s worst habits and helps him pursue his unrequited crush on a cute bookstore clerk (Atsuko Maeda). Adapted from a novel set in 1988 Tokyo, The Drudgery Train is an unconventional coming-of-age tale and class-inflected character study that manages to upend every expectation of its unlikely yet likeable hero, directed by slacker comedy auteur Nobuhiro Yamashita (Linda, Linda, Linda).

Title: Rebirth
Director: Izuru Narushima
2011/147 min./ Japan

[STORY] In despair from a series of tragedies brought on by her affair with a married man, Kiwako (Hiromi Nagasaku) abducts her lover’s 6-month-old baby and raises the child as her own for four years before getting caught. Now a college-aged adult laden with her own relationship issues, the formerly abducted child Erina (Mao Inoue) confronts her repressed past with Kiwako to discover the truth about herself. A huge hit in Japan that never saw a stateside theatrical release, Rebirth swept the 2012 Japan Academy Film Prize in every major category, racking up 13 nominations and 11 wins, including Picture of the Year.

Title: Confessions
Director: Tetsuya Nakashima
2010/106 min./ Japan

[STORY] On the last day of term, a grieving middle school teacher (Takako Matsu) reveals that two of her students are responsible for the death of her four-year-old daughter, who was found drowned in the school swimming pool. She delivers a planned confession—a death knell detailing her carefully planned vengeance—that leaves the typically raucous classroom reeling and prompts the students’ psychological torment that follows. A dark and stylish odyssey of increasingly disquieting proportions, Nakashima’s lavishly shot, breathless thriller took Japan by storm upon release and eventually landed on the shortlist for the 2011 Academy Awards Foreign Language Film nominations. Please note: This film contains disturbing scenes of graphic violence. Viewer discretion is advised.

Title: Air Doll
Director: Hirokazu Kore-eda
2009/125 min./ Japan

[STORY] A present-day fable for the increasing disconnect we find in urban life, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Air Doll transports the Galatea myth to present day Tokyo. When an inflatable sex doll named Nozomi (Bae Doona) finds that she has grown consciousness and a heart, she begins to wander the city in quiet awe and fascination. As she takes on a new life of her own, Nozomi also discovers the innate complexities of being human, including the heartbreak of loneliness. Joining forces with cinematographer Mark Lee Ping-Bing (In The Mood for Love), Kore-eda’s intimate direction relays the struggles of finding human connection in the mess of modern society.

Title: One Million Yen Girl
Director: Yuki Tanada
2008/121 min./ Japan

[STORY] After a roommate dispute lands her at the police station, 21-year-old Suzuko (Yu Aoi, Wife of a Spy) becomes the object of family ridicule and neighborhood gossip. Fed up with the unwanted attention, she vows to move out of the house once she earns one million yen ($10,000), beginning a cycle wherein Suzuko drifts from town to town taking odd jobs and leaving every time she reaches her monetary goal. But when a romantic prospect unexpectedly crosses her path, Suzuko starts to reconsider her priorities. A wonderfully charming travelogue across Japan and an endearing portrait of youthful resilience written and directed by Yuki Tanada (Romance Doll).

Title: Sakuran
Director: Mika Ninagawa
2007/111 min./ Japan

[STORY] Sold into a brothel within the Yoshiwara red light district of 18th century Edo as a young girl, rebellious Kiyoha (Anna Tsuchiya, Kamikaze Girls) rises through the ranks over the years despite herself and becomes next in line as oiran (head courtesan) while keeping a constant eye on finding a way out. Distinguished by its bold visual style—replete with gorgeous candy-colored sets and flashy period costumes—Sakuran is a kaleidoscopic tour de force and the feature film debut by celebrated art photographer Mika Ninagawa, who makes the most of her knack for eye-catching compositions. Adapted from the popular manga by Moyoco Anno and featuring a memorably vibrant soundtrack by renowned musician Ringo Sheena.

EVENT: 21ST CENTURY JAPAN: FILMS FROM 2001-2020DATES: February 5-25, 2021VENUE: Online

EVENT: 21ST CENTURY JAPAN: FILMS FROM 2001-2020
DATES: February 5-25, 2021
VENUE: Online