ISSUEISSUE 19: 14: FEBRUARY OCTOBER 20072005 THE JAPAN FOUNDATION LONDON NEWSLETTER Move Over, Ozu Japan Foundation Touring Programme comes to the UK ention the words ‘contemporary Japanese Mcinema’ and most people overseas will immediately think of apocalyptic horrors, oddball animation or violent gangster movies. Is this a fair evaluation of all that Japanese cinema can offer? With 2006 bringing record box-office takings and the biggest domestic market share in decades, contemporary Japanese cinema shows itself to be no pale shadow of the 1950s Golden Era. Yasujiro Ozu, regarded among world cinema’s greatest filmmakers and one of those working during the Golden Era, made his finest work within the housebound milieu. Sway (2006) When first brought overseas, Ozu’s films’ warmth and humanism won over the western So too, has the industry changed from a time relationship between the individual and society. audience; their simple stories revolving around when major studios dominated production. One can also notice a slight difference in such commonplace concerns as lone fathers Recent years have seen an explosion in the approach, more detectable in Japanese culture in fretting over their unwedded daughters, elderly independent sector, giving rise to an increased general, between the soul-searching pessimism of parents neglected by their career-oriented plurality in outsider voices from highly-talented the turn of the millennium works and the new offspring, or simple squabbles between siblings new directors who use their art to pass comment hedonism of the younger filmmakers, for whom over the most trivial of things. After all, East or on the modern state of the nation. The broad making great entertainment is the main aim. West, everyone can identify with having a family. canvas provided by ensemble casts of characters, Challenging, elucidating, not to mention often Ozu’s films also present a microcosm for a society whose relationships are fixed from the outset but highly entertaining, this type of film reflects the in flux during the rapid redevelopment and shift kaleidoscopically over time to form new scope of vision and depth of ambition to be modernisation of the post-war era. Fifty years on, interconnected patterns, provides a rich and found within this definition of ‘the contemporary and on the surface, Japanese society has changed, flexible framework to look at issues like changing family movie’. but the concern with the family and its changing sex roles, external pressures imposed by the nature and function has remained a central workplace, media representations of how a Jasper Sharp, Editor of Midnight Eye, advisor component of the work of many filmmakers. family should be, and on a broader level, also the to this programme Move Over, Ozu Watershed (Bristol) Films in this year’s touring programme: Japan Foundation 4, 11, 18, 24, 25 February Hush! (Ryosuke Hashiguchi/2001) www.watershed.co.uk Canary (Akihiko Shiota/2005) Touring Film Programme Filmhouse (Edinburgh) Sway (Miwa Nishikawa/2006) Does modern Japanese Cinema have more 23 February – 1 March A Laughing Frog (Hideyuki Hirayama/2002) to it than ghosts, guns and gangsters? Find www.filmhousecinema.com Licence to Live (Kiyoshi Kurosawa/1999) out in the 4th Japan Foundation touring Showroom Cinema (Sheffield) Hanging Garden (Toshiaki Toyoda/2005) film programme. Concentrating on the idea 1, 8, 15, 18, 22, 29 March of family, this touring programme aims to www.showroom.org.uk show an alternative to the Japanese films we Queens Film Theatre (Belfast) 2 – 7 March are accustomed to in the UK. None of these www.queensfilmtheatre.com films have been seen in the UK outside of Riverside Studios (London) 9 – 11 March film festivals and some of these titles are www.riversidestudios.co.uk UK premieres. For screening times, please contact the individual venues. Licence to Live (1999) News Retail Cultures: Art and High-end Fashion Retail in Tokyo supported me with the travel costs involved as case studies such as Comme des Garçons, in conducting a research trip to Japan. Takashimaya and Mitsukoshi. Unable to speak Japanese, I encountered However, while organising this trip, I became some initial difficulties but my research arose aware of a lack of networks linking research interest and I was able to organise visits, students. I would therefore be keen to help meetings and interviews. I met artists from build contacts between Japanese and British different fields, at various stages of their careers academics and research students in my field. In and levels of notoriety. Interviewing these the near future, I hope to present papers and artists helped me understand the importance of possibly organise seminars with students from in-store exhibitions, particularly in department my own university. I also hope to publish an stores, for Japanese artists’ careers. article on my research subject, including a I also met representatives of art departments description of the Japanese retail culture. from key Japanese department stores and fashion retail groups’ galleries and dedicated art Jessica Bush, Buckinghamshire Chilterns centres. I visited galleries and cultural centres University College located within flagship stores of Japanese and international high-end fashion brands. Jessica Bush was in Japan in November 2006, This research trip was very beneficial for my assisted by the Japan Foundation Study Support research. Visiting Tokyo allowed me to acquire Programme. Some of the others supported under an up-to-date, more accurate and improved this scheme in 2006-7 include: understanding of the Japanese retail culture and Yew Meng Lai The Politics of Pride? Rising Prada, Tokyo art’s presence in it. I could not have grasped Nationalism in Contemporary Japanese and apan represents a significant market for certain elements, like the functioning of Chinese Relations Jluxury apparel, in particular, the high-end Japanese department stores or the importance Graham Cooper Project Japan – Art Media in fashion sector, leaving Tokyo to now be of architecture for high-fashion retail design, Context considered a strategic city for international without being there in person. The Study Support Programme provides fashion retail. In the context of my PhD on The information gathered will come to form assistance towards travel for those conducting the use of art in high-end fashion retail, I a chapter of my dissertation in which I intend research in Japan. have come to research Japan’s distinctive to discuss the position of art as a retail For more information about the Study retail culture. In late 2006, I was awarded a language. It will also serve to enrich my Support Programme, please contact Esther grant by the Japan Foundation, which descriptions of the Japanese brands I am using Williams: [email protected] New Japan Cultural Profile Available Online JPF Recommends: Vertigo Magazine new Japan Cultural Profile has just been A added to the growing list of Cultural Japan Special Profiles on the Visiting Arts website. This project was supported by the Japan Foundation. ertigo is the UK’s leading magazine The Cultural Profile has general information Vdedicated to worldwide independent film, about Japan and an extensive section on published quarterly with free monthly web culture, including key contacts in different areas issues. The new issue is a Japan Special with as the Cultural Profile Project tries to address reports on the most important trends in the difficulty professionals have creating Japanese independent filmmaking, plus, Cine- collaborations with their counterparts overseas. Manga, an exclusive 48 page full colour book Sub-divisions in the culture section include of stunning photographs by world renowned heritage, literature, awards and competitions. director Takeshi Kitano, free with the Hopefully, this project will encourage many magazine. Also included in the Japan Special more collaborations in the Arts between Japan are interviews with filmmakers Kiyoshi and the UK. Kurosawa, Ryuichi Hiroki and Tetsuaki Vertigo Magazine To see the Cultural Profiles Project, visit Matsue, full colour artists’ pages, new fiction Vertigo’s Japan Special is available online at www.culturalprofiles.net/visiting_arts/Director and articles on Japanese independent feature www.vertigomagazine.co.uk ies/overview/ film and documentary. Peter Fraser, Vertigo Magazine 2 The Japan Foundation Newsletter Grant Programme ResultsNews Sky-scrapers, Sumo and Sushi ow do a class of 14-year olds view Japan? scrapers. Many of the children’s drawings of JFLLC News: HHow do those views change as they learn Japan showed a crowded, urban landscape with rd about the country in school? These were the tall buildings and streets full of people and cars. 3 Place in Shizuoka questions I hoped to answer during a 10-week However, some children also imagined a rural Junior Translation school-based research project in Summer 2006. side, including mountains and fields, though few To form a detailed case study of the children’s recognised the importance of rice farming. Competition for These initial ideas were informed by goods from UK Learner Japan, a wide range of TV programmes and films, food n December 2006, Tom Barrett, a shops, and family and friends. IYear 13 student from St. Augustine’s Each child's views and sources Catholic College in Wiltshire, was were different, for example, awarded 3rd prize in the 4th Shizuoka Lawrence’s family had Junior Translation Competition. When connections with Burma so asked what interests him about his ideas were informed by Japanese, he says he was initially various pictures and photos inspired by Japanese films and comics, from SE Asia displayed in his an interest which has developed in the home (see picture). It was four years he has been studying fascinating watching how the Japanese. Tom was encouraged to enter children’s ideas changed over the competition, in which he was time as they responded to required to translate an extract from their teacher and all the Erika Tachihara’s Yuki no hi no different resources and Orugooru, by his tutor, Lydia Morey, a experiences to which they had prominent figure in secondary Japanese understandings, I collected material from access.