EVENT: Flash Forward: Debut Works and Recent Films by Notable Japanese Directors
DATES: December 3-23, 2021
VENUE: Online / Japan Society, Auditorium
Highlighting the early efforts of now-established contemporary filmmakers, the second ACA Cinema Project series Flash Forward: Debut Works and Recent Films by Notable Japanese Directors takes an intimate look at six of Japan’s most well-known directors: Naomi Kawase, Miwa Nishikawa, Shuichi Okita, Junji Sakamoto, Akihiko Shiota and Masayuki Suo. Pairing each debut with a recent work, the series presents two distinct facets of each filmmaker’s career—encouraging dialogue and interplay as well as tracking the development of their signature voice. By drawing parallels and contrasts between past and present, Flash Forward illuminates the importance of these pivotal early works within each artist’s career. Co-presented by the Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan, in collaboration with Visual Industry Promotion Organization.
Event Title：Flash Forward: Conversations with the Filmmakers Part I
Speaker：Masayuki Suo, Naomi Kawase, Junji Sakamoto
*online
Event Title：Flash Forward: Conversations with the Filmmakers Part II
Speaker：Akihiko Shiota, Miwa Nishikawa, Shuichi Okita
*online
Event Title：Panel Discussion: Debut Works and Beyond
Speaker：Aaron Gerow(Professor at Yale University,Scholar of Japanese and other East Asian film and media), Takuya Tsunoda(Assistant Professor of Japanese Film and Media at Columbia University), Junko Yamazaki(UCLA assistant Professor Asian Languages & cultures Department), Jasper Sharp(Arrow Films writer,film curator,filmmaker)
*online
Title: Fancy Dance
Director: Masayuki Suo
1989/101 min./ Japan
[STORY] Descended from a long lineage of Buddhist priests, young punk rocker Yohei (Masahiro Motoki) finds himself obligated to carry on the family name—shaving his (already half-shaven) head, bidding adieu to girlfriend Masoho (Honami Suzuki) and trading in his mod suits for monastic robes—as he reluctantly joins a Zen temple to train as a novitiate for one year. Relocating to a remote mountainside temple where the day-to-day activities include a range of ascetic practices, rites and observances, Yohei’s outward rejection of authority and mischievous ways land him in hot water with the high-ranking monks. Despite all, Yohei soon finds himself taken with the Buddhist way of life, and must face a decision on whether he should remain a monk or return to his anarchic roots. An entertaining, humorous and farcical approach to the puritanical lifestyle, Fancy Dance served as Masayuki Suo’s mainstream debut after the release of his hour-long Ozu pinku satire, Abnormal Family (1984).
©KADOKAWA CORPORATION 1989
Title: Talking the Pictures
Director: Masayuki Suo
2019/127 min./ Japan
[STORY] The latest film by celebrated director Masayuki Suo (Shall We Dance?) is set in the last days of Japan’s silent movie era, when the real stars were not the actors on screen but live narrators known as benshi who dictated the action, voiced characters and transported audiences into the world of moving images. Hiding from the law in a small town cinema after a burglary gone wrong, lifelong cinephile Shuntaro (Ryo Narita) seeks to change his ways and fulfill his childhood dream of being a star _benshi_—but before long, a cocky rival performer, a gang of criminals and a relentless detective threaten to undo everything. Filled with charming period details and visual gags, Talking the Pictures is a genuine love letter to Japan’s golden age of silent cinema and a tribute to the magic of moviegoing.
© TALKING THE PICTURES Production Committee
Title: The Albino’s Trees
Director: Masakazu Kaneko
2016/86 min./ Japan
[STORY] A poignant moral dilemma unfolding against lush mountainous landscapes, The Albino’s Trees follows Yuku (Ryohei Matsuoka), an animal control hunter who takes on a lucrative job to kill a rare white deer considered to be a god of the forest by a nearby village. Though Yuku initially steps up to the task in order to support his mother’s medical bills, his will begins to falter as he gets to know the villagers and the reasons behind their difficult choice to live as outsiders. Director Masakazu Kaneko renders these nuanced relationships with a measured pace and subtle touch, and the film’s panoramic vistas mix with tender close-ups of bodies in nature to probe some of the film’s biggest questions about what it means to act and live within the matrix of personal obligations, conformity to modern life and the larger rhythms of nature that bear quiet witness to human decisions.
© kinone
Title: Blue Hour
Director: Yuko Hakota
2019/92 min./ Japan
[STORY] Just past 30, Sunada (Kaho) is a consummate Tokyo entertainment media professional (with the toxic love life and battered liver to prove it), directing television commercials that require more personality management skills than artistry. Discouraged by the inequitable pressures of a misogynist industry and her cycle of self-destructive behavior, Sunada road trips to her rural Ibaraki hometown with her free-spirited best friend Kiyoura (Eun-kyung Shim), where she reopens uneasy family relationships and unlocks repressed creative spirits. Director Yuko Hakota manages subtle fluctuations of reality with distinct comedic flair in this remarkable debut, announcing the arrival of a new force in Japanese cinema.
© 2019 BLUE HOUR Film Committee
Title: A Boy Sato
Director: Omoi Sasaki
2017/15 min./ Japan
[STORY] Set in a mountainous hot spring town, the sci-fi inflected A Boy Sato focuses on the sudden reappearance of the eponymous Sato, a strange outsider, who greets his old friend Hijikata one day outside the local train station. Visiting former hangout spots and local attractions, Sato begins to sense that something is not quite right in the town.
©2017 A Boy Sato Film Partner
Title: Forgiven Children
Director: Eisuke Naito
2020/131 min./ Japan
[STORY] Thirteen-year-old Kira and his friends regularly torment their classmate, Itsuki, but one day Kira takes things too far—shooting an arrow from a makeshift crossbow into Itsuki’s throat. As Itsuki bleeds out, Kira and his friends flee the scene, but when Kira is interviewed by police, he confesses. As the object of rabid social media attention—even being doxxed online—Kira is found “not guilty” by juvenile court to everyone’s dismay. But the constant attention on Kira and his family never relents as cries for justice escalate into xenophobic hate, social media harassment, and more. A raw and unsettling account of teen bullying and delinquency, Forgiven Children takes inspiration from real-life juvenile cases in Japan, presenting an unfiltered view on the Japanese juvenile system, the ruthless cycle perpetrated by bullying, and conflicting questions of ethics and morality.
©2020“Forgiven Children” Film Partner
Title: Jesus
Director: Hiroshi Okuyama
2019/76 min./ Japan
[STORY] A quiet boy named Yura moves with his family from Tokyo to the snowy Japanese countryside where he is enrolled in a Christian elementary school. Adjusting to the foreign religious rituals and iconography surrounding him, Yura tries Christian prayer for the first time and a silent six-inch Jesus materializes before him. The tiny Christ seems to grant Yura’s wishes, but when tragedy strikes, Yura starts to question his newfound faith. Winner of the New Directors Award at the 2019 San Sebastian International Film Festival, 22-year-old director Hiroshi Okuyama imbues wry humor, mystery and a childlike perspective in this highly original, oddball debut.
© Closing Remarks
Title: My Atomic Aunt
Director: Kyoko Miyake
2013/73 min./ Japan
[STORY] After spending 10 years abroad, director Kyoko Miyake returns home to Japan to visit Namie, the sleepy coastal town of her youth, in the wake of 3⁄11. With its close proximity to the Fukushima plant, Namie has since become a forbidden zone—displacing Miyake’s elderly Aunt Kumiko who clings to the hope that one day she may return. As younger generations move on and leave the region, Miyake documents her aunt’s struggles with adjusting to life outside of her beloved Namie. Exploring her family history, Miyake uncovers the town’s complicated and conflicting history with nuclear power—constructing a heartbreaking eulogy for a community that now remains only in memory.
©️insel film production co-production with NHK/WDR/BBC/IKON/SVT/Knowledge Network/YESDocus
Title: Tange Sazen and the Pot Worth a Million Ryo (Longest Version)
Director: Sadao Yamanaka
1935/94 min./ Japan
[STORY] Through a series of mishaps, an ugly pot containing a secret map to the prominent Yagyu family’s hidden million ryo fortune is gifted away, passed unwittingly from owner to owner as the lord scrambles to regain possession. As word spreads through the land, the sought-after pot unknowingly lands in the hands of a small child, Yasu, who uses it to keep his goldfish. But when Yasu’s father dies, he’s taken under the care of a local tavern guarded by the gruff, one-armed, one-eyed ronin, Tange Sazen. As luck would have it, the lord’s brother, Genzaburo, begins to frequent the very same tavern...
©Nikkatsu
Title: Priest of Darkness
Director: Sadao Yamanaka
1936/82 min./ Japan
[STORY] Based on the classic kabuki play Kochiyama & Naozamurai, Yamanaka’s Priest of Darkness is an intricately-plotted jidaigeki set in the streets of an impoverished Tokyo district. Troublemaker Hiro frequently gambles and finds himself embroiled in a prickly ordeal when he steals a samurai’s knife—setting in motion a domino-effect of bad fortune. The quick-witted Hiro hides out under the name of Nao at the tavern of good-willed Kochiyama Soshun, the titular “priest”—a man who dresses in monastic garb and runs the local gambling den. All the while, Hiro’s sister, the beautiful Onami (played by a young Setsuko Hara in one of her earliest roles), desperately searches for him and finds favor with Kochiyama, who promises to find her brother for her.
©Nikkatsu