more bunkacho plans

[Aaron Gerow]

Do people want to begin a discussion on what the Bunkacho should be 
doing? 

The Bunkacho has posted the interim report of the committee, so you can 
read it on the internet: http://www.bunka.go.jp/

The Bunkacho is also accepting comments on the report by e-mail, with a 
deadline of February 19th.

In my Eiga Geijutsu best ten comments, I argued for more support for 
cinema education, both filmmaking and history/theory. The report does 
call for more support for filmmaker education, but mentions nothing about 
film studies or film literacy.

The Ministry of Education, for instance, has introduced a new curriculum 
in all the nation's schools: Sogo Kyoiku, or general education. All 
schools must devote a portion of the day to that. And for the first time, 
film is actually included as one of the topics in that curriculum. This 
was one of the topics at the JASIAS symposium last June.  But the papers 
are reporting that most of the nation's teachers are at a loss at what to 
teach during this time and thus are just making their students do 
individual study. While film isn't the only part of that curriculum, 
clearly no one really knows how to teach film or other elements of the 
Sogo Kyoiku curriculum in the schools.

Beyond that, the Bunkacho has to pour more money into the Film Center to 
support staff and facilities upgrade (especially viewing booths, etc.). I 
talked to Zeze Takahisa the other week and he is completely skeptical 
about the Bunkacho plan for having all films be donated to the FC. Unless 
the Bunkacho is going to pay for it, most small production companies are 
not going to pay the 600,000 yen it costs for a 35mm feature length 
print. If the Bunkacho has to pay for it, can it pay for the some 200 
million yen it might cost? Nothing is mentioned in the report.

By the way, the Bunkacho is also calling for rewriting copyright law to 
extend copyright for films from the current 50 to 70 years. It's 
certainly better than the atrocious 94 years in the US, but 70 puts most 
of the 1930s films out of the public domain.

Aaron Gerow
Associate Professor
International Student Center
Yokohama National University
79-1 Tokiwadai
Hodogaya-ku, Yokohama 240-8501
JAPAN
E-mail: gerow at ynu.ac.jp
Phone: 81-45-339-3170
Fax: 81-45-339-3171