Golden Week ends with sad news

[Roland Domenig]

This years Golden Week ends with a series of sad news.
On Labour Day the set designer Shindo Seigo passed away at the age of 90.
Shindo joined the Nikkatsu studios in 1935 and worked with directors such as
Toyoda Shiro, Abe Yutaka, Uchida Tomu and Shima Koji. After the war he
joined Shinto and worked with Inagaki Hiroshi, Ichikawa Kon and other
directors. In 1956 he switched to Toei where he often worked with Makino
Masahiro and Imai Tadashi amongst others.
Also on May 1 the director Yoshida Kenji died from pneumonia at the age of
71. Yoshida began his career as assistant director for Nikkatsu and made his
debut with WATAKUSHI WA NAKANAI in 1966. When Nikkatsu changed its
production-line to Roman Porno he left the studio and continued as
independent director. In 1974 he co-directed MOSUKUWA WAGA AI, a
co-production with the Mosfilm studio and Soviet director Alexander Mitta, a
year later he directed MEGURIAI for the production company ATG. In the 80s
and 90s Yoshida mainly worked for TV.
The saddest news is the tragic death of former producer Maeda Katsuhiro, who
was burned to death in a fire on May 2. Maeda was chief producer of the
production company Gentosha which he and director Higashi Yoichi
established. He produced many of Higashi's films amongst them SAADO, SHIKI
MINAKO and MANON. Maeda also produced films by Kuroki Kazuki and Tsuchimoto
Noriaki, and directed himself documentaries about the victims of pollution
and disabled people. Several years ago he had a cerebral infarcation and
became himself disabled. It seems that he couldn't escape by his own when a
fire started in his apartment.
During the Udine Far East Film Festival, that this year had to struggle
against pressures from the local health authorities and hostilities of
certain groups because of the SARS problem, we learned that Xie Fei, the
acclaimed director of BLACK SNOW and other films, was infected by SARS and
is now in intensive care. His condition seems to be very serious. I hope he
recovers soon.   

Roland Domenig
Institute of East Asian Studies
Vienna University