Saturday, August 22, 2009
JG Gets a Media Shout Out from a Friend
If you follow Japanese cinema you've heard about the growing number of female directors in recent years. Well, there are also women working behind the camera as cinematographers, editors, art directors, costumers, sales agents and yes producers -- the people that make it all happen.
Kitô Yukie (木藤幸江さん) is a unique figure in the Japanese film world. She entered the business overseas and upon returning to Japan learned the local industry under Ichise Takashige, becoming a producer herself. She's worked with directors as diverse as Mira Nair, Ethan Hawke, Wayne Wang and of course Kurosawa Kiyoshi for Tokyo Sonata (collected posts that mention the film here).
Despite her packed schedule at home and overseas she has found the time to keep up an excellent blog about her adventures in the film business on the website of Roadshow -- a long-running Japanese Hollywood movie magazine that went fully digital last year. Yukie and I always have a good chat about the state of the business with a bit of gossip thrown in, but it always comes down to getting excited about the great films that haven't been made yet. Yukie is very upbeat and enjoys what she does (film company workers, take note). Friends like that rub off on you.
She kindly included a little about me in her latest blog entry when we went out for lunch at the refurbished Las Chicas in Aoyama. We agreed that one project in particular had to get off the ground, but that it would take positive pushing from various sides.
2 comments:
Hi Jason,
This is Goro from Mount Albert Ontario.
Long time no chat! How are things?
I just went to check out a new festival in town called Shinsedai Cinema Festival at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre.
http://shinsedai-fest.com/
It showcased 24 Japanese indie movies, over the course of 3 days. It was quite fun. Films were innovative and crafty, comedy, drama, animation, long and short, some of them, you know, way out there. For a first time event, it was very well organized and good over all, although could have used a lot more advertisement. Some makers and actors came all the way from Japan to attend O&A's too. Some of them were already quite established. I managed to sneak out of the house and attended all 3 evening showings and saw 6 films all accompanied by great shorts.
It was a surprisingly good event and seemed to have drawn pretty good crowds. I hope they'll do it again next year.
The best part was though, they had a bar in the hall right outside of the theatre and you could have cold beer with sushi while watching the films. That was nice!
Hope to talk to you soon!
G
Hi Goro,
Great to hear from you! How are things in the foley world? (people reading these comments, check out this post from 2006).
A few of the guests at Shinsedai are friends or acquaintances, such as the talented young director of "Now, I..." I'm glad that the turnout was strong -- I was a little worried about the Flemingdon Park location, not far from where I grew up.
I'll be back in Toronto for most of the film festival. If you'll be around for any of it (maybe one of your films is screening?) let me know!
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