Suncent/Sento Takenori

[Don Brown]

Did anyone post on the restructuring at Suncent already?  
Looks like Gojoe really tanked at the box office.  I can remember watching 
it in the tiniest theatre in the multiplex, only two weeks after it opened, 
while "Whiteout" was still playing in the big theatre to packed audiences 
after several weeks in release.  I wonder what this news will mean for 
directors like Ishii Sogo, who have been heavily backed by Sento in the 
past?            
Don Brown
http://www.geocities.com/the8thsamurai

>Japan's SunCent restructures, loses president 
Mark Schilling in Tokyo                  November 27, 2001 

Beset by red ink, leading Japanese independent producer SunCent Cinema 
Works has relocated to the headquarters of its parent Wowow , while 
president and founder Takenori Sento is preparing to exit the company and 
launch a new production venture, Rumble Fish. 

SunCent will continue to manage the rights for the films produced under 
Sento's three-year reign, while plans for new production are on hold, 
pending the arrival of a new president. "We will continue to distribute 
films for theatrical, TV and video, while handling foreign rights sales," 
said a company source. "SunCent will survive." No staff cuts are presently 
planned. At the same time, Wowow is expected to take a stake in Sento's new 
production entity, though percentages and names of other investors have yet 
to be announced. 

Sento began producing films at Wowow, a cable and satellite broadcaster 
specialising in entertainment programming, in 1992 under the J Movie Wars 
banner. In 1998, with Wowow's backing, he launched SunCent Cinema Works to 
produce films with leading Japanese indie directors, including Shinji 
Aoyama, Naomi Kawase, Nobuhiro Suwa and Sogo Ishii. Over the years Sento's 
films have earned dozens of major festival invitations and awards, 
including a Camera d'or prize at Cannes in 1997 for Kawase's debut feature 
Suzaku. 

SunCent, however, has long been struggling to attain profitability and 
suffered a major blow last year when Ishii's big-budget period drama Gojoe 
disappointed at the box office. 

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