3rd Tokyo Gohan Film Festival (第３回東京ごはん映画祭)

The 3rd Tokyo Gohan Film Festival

第３回東京ごはん映画祭

6-21 October 2012

This year’s Tokyo Gohan Film Festival – also known as The Tokyo Food Lover’s Festival – is being hosted by Image Forum with some events being held at Spiral Hall and other venues around town.  The programme includes perennial favourites such as Naoko Ogigami’s Seagull Diner (Kamome Shokudo, 2006) and Percy Adlon’s Bagdad Café (1987) as well as recent hits such as Nora Ephron’s Julie & Julia (2009) and Shūichi Okita’s The Woodsman and the Rain (2011) starring Kōji Yakusho and Shun Oguri which won the audience prize at this year’s Nippon Connection.  There are also some great docs on the menu including Gereon Wetzel's  El Bulli (2011) about chef Ferran Adrià's famed restaurant in Catalonia, Spain.  To learn more about the programme check out their official website.

Penguin Fūfu『ペンギン夫婦の作りかた』

Katsutoshi Hirabayashi, JAPAN, feature, 2012

http://www.penguinfufu.jp/

eatrip

Yuri Nomura, JAPAN, documentary, 2009

http://www.eatripfilm.com/

The Help『ヘルプ 〜心がつなぐストーリー〜』

Tate Taylor, USA, feature, 2011

http://thehelpmovie.com/

Bread of Happiness 『しあわせのパン』

Yukiko Mishima, JAPAN, feature, 2012

http://shiawase-pan.asmik-ace.co.jp/index.html

Marie Antoinette 『マリー・アントワネット』

Sofia Coppola, USA, feature, 2006

El Bulli: Cooking in Progress『エル・ブリの秘密 世界一予約のとれないレストラン』

Gereon Wetzel, GERMANY, documentary, 2011

http://elbullimovie.com/

Julie & Julia 『ジュリー&ジュリア』

Nora Ephron, USA, feature, 2009

The Woodsman and the Rain『キツツキと雨』

Shūichi Okita, JAPAN, feature, 2011

http://kitsutsuki-rain.jp/

Seagull Diner 『かもめ食堂』

Naoko Ogigami, JAPAN, feature,  2006

Read Review 

Bagdad Café 『バグダッド・カフェ』

Percy Adlon, GERMANY/USA, feature, 1987

A Good Year『プロヴァンスの贈りもの』

Ridley SCOTT, UK, feature, 2006

Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution 『未来の食卓』

Nos enfants nous accuseront 

Jean-Paul Jaud, FRANCE, documentary, 2008

http://www.uplink.co.jp/shokutaku/

Antique 『アンティーク 〜西洋骨董洋菓子店〜』

Min Kyu-Dong, SOUTH KOREA, feature, 2011

http://www.cinemart.co.jp/antique/

Dinner Rush『ディナー・ラッシュ』

Brian S. Kalata and Rick Shaugnessy, USA, feature, 2000

Taipei Café Story『台北カフェ・ストーリー』aka Taipei Exchanges

Ya-chuan Hsiao, TAIWAN, feature, 2010

http://www.taipeicafe.net/

Kickstart Masaaki Yuasa’s Latest Anime “Kick-Heart”

Today Production I.G. launched a fundraising campaign on Kickstart for Masaaki Yuasa’s latest animation project: a 10-minute animated short called “Kick-Heart”.  Yuasa is the animator behind such innovative, award-winning anime as Mind Game (2005) and Kaiba (2008), The Tatami Galaxy (2010). 

It has never been easy for cutting edge animators to get funding in Japan, but in recent years the squeeze has gotten even tighter.  Companies would rather put their money into tried-and-true franchises rather than take a risk on animators who think outside the box like Yuasa.  As he says in the above video:

“I would like to create something interesting.  I am not interested making the same kind of projects that other people have already created.  My hope is that investors would pay for what they think is interesting but they don’t.  I think crowd-funding is a great attempt for individuals who want to try to work on these types of projects.  I think it’s a great system.”

This is a great opportunity for fans of anime around the world to show their support for indie animation.  From an artistic rather than a corporate perspective the risk involved in backing this project is very low.  Not only is Yuasa a proven talent, but the legendary director Mamoru Oshii (Patlabor 2, Ghost in the Shell, Innocence, The Sky Crawlers) is also a consultant on the project.  Production I.G. also has a proven track record with such anime classics as Ghost in the Shell (Oshii, 1995), Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade (Hiroyuki Okiura, 1999), and Blood: The Last Vampire (Hiroyuki Kitakubo, 2000), and Innocence (Oshii, 2004).

For as little as $15 US you can have not only feel pride in having supported talented animators, but you will also get a digital download of the film.  The more money you donate, the better the thank-you package.  Donate now.

Learn more about Yuasa by reading my review of Mind Game or my coverage of his visit to the Japan Media Arts Festival Dortmund last year: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV.

©cmmhotes 2012  

UPDATE 8 October 2012:  Kick-heart is already up to 1000 backers and has reached 50% of its goal.  If they exceed their goal and make it to $400,000 they are promising to make a second 10 minute companion film.  If they make it to $1 million they will turn Kick-heart into a feature film!!  Read more here.

Last Fragments of Winter (冬の断片, 2011)

Memory can be such a fleeting thing, often taking the form of fragments of images, sounds, tastes, and smells.  Tokyo-based filmmaker Edmund Yeo’s latest short film Last Fragments of Winter (冬の断片/Fuyu no danpen, 2011) is an assemblage of just such snatches of memory.  It is beautifully shot and poetically arranged in a non-linear fashion.

As the film opens, it is not quite clear whose story is being told and what the relationship is between the wintery traditional village of Shinagawa-go in Japan and the urban and rural landscapes of Malaysia.  Gradually, scene by scene, the characters and story begin to reveal themselves.  Before long it becomes apparent that these fragments of memory belong not just to one person but to three members of the same family: a mother, a father, and their young son.  In spite of their youth, all three have had to deal with a world of troubles and sorrows.

The father (Berg Lee) attends the Buddhist funeral of a former lover and speaks to her ghost, the young son (Foo Kang Chen) is sent on an errand in place of his absent sister, and the mother (Tan Ley Teng) struggles with a mysterious illness that is making her progressively weaker.  The mother has a passion for photography which dates back to her youth.  As a young woman (played by Arisa Koike in the flashback sequences) visiting Japan, she quietly walks around the village of Shinagawa-go as though she is loathe to disturb its tranquility. The only sounds are the chatter of the hiyodori (brown-eared bulbuls), the cry of a distant jungle crow, the crunch of the snow beneath her feet and the click of the shutter on her Mamiya camera.  This scene is paralleled with a similarly idyllic outing she takes later in life with her young son to photograph a rice patty field in her native Malaysia.  The woman’s desire to record the world around her evokes the theme of the ephemerality of life on earth. 

In collaboration with cinematographers Kong Pahurak and Tan Teckzee, Edmund Yeo has put together a hauntingly beautiful film.  From the greens and blues of the family’s Malaysian apartment to the white and black of rural Japan in winter, each scene has been carefully crafted to create just the right tone.  There is an other-worldliness to the scenes of Arisa Koike in the snow  that suggest that this may not just be the youthful memories of the mother but an eternal place where weary souls may go to rest.

The story was inspired by a short story called “The Moon” by celebrated writer Mieko Kanai.  Kanai seems an ideal choice for adaptation as her stories are highly visual in nature.  Yeo has managed to capture the dream-like quality of a Kanai story while adding unique elements from his own personal experiences.  The film won Yeo an award at the recent Sapporo Short Film Fest (learn more) and has also played at festivals in Dubai and Nara.  Keep an eye out on Yeo’s official website for information about future screenings.

©2012 cmmhotes

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This is the latest in a series of reviews of the short films of the award-winning Malaysian filmmaker Edmund Yeo (b. Singapore, 1984).  A graduate of Murdoch University in Australia, Yeo has been based in Tokyo since 2008 when he moved there to pursue a Master’s degree at Waseda.  His films have received wide acclaim at international festivals including Cannes, Pusan, and Rotterdam.  Click on the film titles below to learn about his other works.

Edmund Yeo Filmography (homepage)

Chicken Rice Mystery (2008)

Fleeting Images (2008)

Love Suicides (2009)

kingyo (2009)

The White Flower (2010)

Afternoon River, Evening Sky (2010)

NOW (2010)

Inhalation (2010)

Exhalation (2010)