Re TIFF Indie Program

[Yeh Yueh Yu]

Thanks to Markus for reposting the TIFF programs.

1.  Kanako Hayashi is listed in the program as "Film festival
coordinator"--what happened to the Kawakita Memorial Film Archive?  Has
she been replaced? when?  By whom?

2. (The Nippon Cinema Now program prompted the following)
  A certain type of new Japanese film has gained cult status in Hong
Kong.  Harada's 'Bounce koGals' is stalking 'Love Letter' as the most
profitable foreign film ever .  'Bounce' was showing commercially when I
returned  in August and is still there in the same art house.  I went
there one hot Sunday and queued for an hour to get an autographed
picture and exchange a few pleasantries in Japanese with the stars.  The
event was packed: hundreds of  boys, girls, and loads of press.
	  On the back of 'Bounce,' the distributor recently released 'Kamikaze
Taxi' by the same director.  It won't do as well, but the audience for
this film reminded me of the sort of people who, in America, might have
patronized Hong Kong films in the '80s, early '90s --hip, 20something
cyberpunks  who may or may not be college students.  For that matter I
suppose it was countercultural audiences in their 20s that pushed
Japanese film into the international spotlight in the '60s?  It's a far
cry from the audience for Kurosawa today.  It's like pulling teeth to
get students in their 20s to sit through even the earlier, exciting
Kurosawa films.  And yet they are crazy about 'Bounce' or bishonen pap
like 'The Jikembo of Young Kindaichi.'  Not to mention illegal VCD
copies of Japanese TV soaps.  "The opiate of the masses . . . " Among HK
youth, Japanese movies are hip, but it's not the canonized directors
from college syllabi.  Good for them.  Keep those canons rolling.

Darrell Davis
Hong Kong