Japanese CNC?

[John Gorman]

Thanks Jasper and Mark.  After scouring Irish and British libraries for copies of UniJapan's 'Japanese Film Year Book' or Jiji Tsushinsha's 'Eiga Nenkan', I finally went the easy route and found UniJapan's Internet site <http://www.unijapan.org/> which seems to be the closest equivalent to France's centre national de la cinematographie <http://www.cnc.>.

Although parts of the site are still under construction, it seems quite helpful providing such things as: a list of Japanese movies released during the year (with English and Japanese titles*), award winners, contact details for various associations, production companies, film festivals, film commissions, film schools and the supporting members of UniJapan Film.

Most specific to my study at this time, it has statistics on: the number of feature films released in Japan, attendance, average admission fees, box-office receipts, number of screens and number of imported films released. (I would like to know how these figures compare to those put forth by Eiga Nenkan.)

According to UniJapan, imported films began to numerically dominate domestically produced films in 1987 (there is no breakdown in box office receipts) although it appears Japanese films have been gaining some ground back since 1996. The number of screens showing domestically produced films exclusively has also declined steadily while the number of screens showing both domestic and imported movies has increased dramatically, again since around 1996.

I've read various theories on why American movies have become dominant in various markets (UniJapan's figures on the Internet do not break down countries of origin for imported films <I've requested their yearbook>) ranging from the effects of comparative GDP, rates of growth in consumer spending, the number of television channels in a country, etc. I also recently did an informal survey of 30 Japanese of various ages between 18 and 80 and found that virtually none of them saw more Japanese films than American films nor preferred Japanese films to American films.

The statistics from UniJapan do not specify the role of American films and perhaps my sampling was skewed but I'm hoping that the members of KineJapan, hopefully in good spirits following the sake discussion, might offer their opinions on the apparent loss of dominance of Japanese films in Japan to American films.

With some trepidation,

John Gorman
 




On Thursday, June 19, 2003, at 04:59PM, Mark Nornes <amnornes at umich.edu> wrote:

>Also see the Eiga Nenkan for all sorts of statistics and information.
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>Markus
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>On Wednesday, June 18, 2003, at 08:39  AM, J.sharp wrote:
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>> Hi John,
>>
>> There's an organisation in Japan known as UniJapan, who publish a 
>> yearly catalogue of all Japanese films released every year, under the 
>> auspices of The Agency of Cultural Affairs for Japan. In the latest 
>> one for 2002, they published figures for the percentage made up of 
>> Japanese and foreign titles, stretching all the way back to 1985. It's 
>> a slim, Readers Digest sized book, and you should be able to find it 
>> at national film libraries, but you can always request it from them by 
>> emailing unijapan at tokyo.interq.or.jp. Not sure how good they are at 
>> replying though.
>> Good luck,
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>> Jasper Sharp
>> www.midnighteye.com
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>>
>> --------- Original Message --------
>> From: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
>> To: "KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu" 
>> <KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
>> Subject: Japanese CNC?
>> Date: 18/06/03 04:54
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>>
>> Hello,
>>
>> I'm working on a masters degree in Ireland.
>>
>> Is there a Japanese equivalent of the French 'Centre national de la 
>> cinématographie' where one can find comparative distribution and box 
>> office figures for Japanese and Foreign films in Japan?
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>> http://www.cnc.fr/d_stat/fr_d2.htm
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>> If not, is there some other source, preferably on the Internet for 
>> this info? I'm looking, hopefully as far back as the '50's.
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> John Gorman
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>> ________________________________________________
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