New Query Re Japanese Film Financing System(s)

[Aaron Gerow]

There are unfortunately not enough articles in English, probably 
because industry research is rather rare in Japanese film studies. As 
Markus mentioned, do look at Mark Schilling's work, not just in Screen 
International, but also in the Contemporary Japanese Film book.

For a bit further back, the Anderson/Richie book, The Japanese Film, 
had some good sections on the industry in previous periods. I have an 
article on the industry in the 70s and 80s in the Ichikawa Kon book 
edited by James Quandt.

But the most interesting stuff is coming out in Japanese because this 
is really a transitional period for the film industry. The government 
has long had complaints about certain monopolistic and inefficient 
practices, and so looking at MITI and METI reports over the last decade 
can sometimes be quite illuminating. There were also a number of books 
published about the industry, with the most provocative being Murakami 
and Ogawa's Nihon eiga sangyo saizensen (Murakami is now head of one of 
Japan's most influential investment funds and thus is a major player in 
the "new economy" in Japan). Then in the last few years, METI and the 
Agency for Cultural Affairs have been making a number of proposals 
about "reviving" the film industry and some have been become reality. 
It is now easier to create investment funds for film production and 
structures are being put in place to enable clearer management of 
copyright among various partners. These and other measures are making 
it easier to get bank financing, for instance (bank financing for film 
production was largely unheard of before in Japan, even though it is 
standard in the US).

Things are changing so quickly it's hard to keep up with it. But one 
does wonder what difference this will really make. Maybe Mark can add 
to this?

Aaron Gerow
Assistant Professor
Film Studies Program/East Asian Languages and Literatures
Director of Undergraduate Studies, Film Studies Program
Yale University
53 Wall Street, Room 316
PO Box 208363
New Haven, CT 06520-8363
USA
Phone: 1-203-432-7082
Fax: 1-203-432-6764
e-mail: aaron.gerow at yale.edu