Nippon Connection film festival

[Alex Zahlten]

Since Jasper and Stefan said some kind word about Nippon Connection (many 
thanks), I thought I'd give a short resumee from the organizational point 
of view-

NC showed about 150 films (including shorts) in three sections, Cinema (22 
35mm films), Digital and Retro (this years retrospective focused on 
"subversive" genre film, and was shown at the German Film Museum). 
Audience attendance was good, and though the first sunny weather in months 
provided a slow start the final count was the same as last year, just over 
16.000.

Over 40 guests from Japan attended to introduce their films, among them 
Koji Wakamatsu (with his newest film Cycling Chronicles as well as two 
more films that were shown in the retrospective), Toshiaki Toyoda, 
Hisayasu Sato, Yuji Tajiri, Haruhiko Arai, Kunihiko Tomioka of Planet, the 
Animation Soup collective, Yuki Tanada, Noriko Shibutani and many more. 
The festival attempted to increase interaction between audience and 
filmmakers, and to the usual lectures, Q&A's and Podium Discussions added 
some late night interview events, headed by Luk Van Haute and Midnight 
Eye's Tom Mes, Jasper Sharp respectively. Haruhiko Arai held a lecture on 
the (low) status of the scriptwriter, and the podium discussion was on 
"Sex and Politics in Japanese Film", with Wakamatsu, Sato, Tajiri and Mark 
Nornes participating and Roland Domenig heading the discussion. Happily, 
these events were all well visited and were recieved quite well (at least 
that was my impression).

The audience award (and 2000 Euro) went to an absent Mamoru Hoshi for 
University of Laughs, so Takashi Nishimura of Unijapan took the prize in 
exchange.

The Nippon Connection On Tour program is currently touring through Europe 
(the Barcelona screenings have just ended).

Anyone interested in the exact program can check out the (English) website 
at 
www.nipponconnection.de

And for anyone thinking about attending next year: All the screenings have 
English subtitles, and the discussions and lectures have English 
translation. 

My deepest gratitude to all the members of the list that attended and 
participated in Nippon Connection 2006. Especially the lectures, 
discussions and interview events could not have been pulled off without 
your participation.
Due to being involved in the logistics of the festival, I couldn't attend 
all of events, and could sometimes only partially attend. I would be 
interested in opinions about some of those discussions/lectures by those 
present- also of course comments on the structure of the program etc.. 
Also, a film festival focusing on a "national" cinema is somewhat 
problematic in itself, and it being a festival for Japanese film brings 
some specific issues into play- I feel there is always an interaction of 
images (i.e. stereotypes) and quite varied ideas that creates a pretty 
volatile tension. I would be very interested in what some of those that 
attended thought.

Nippon Connection 2007 will be held from the 18th-22nd of April.

Best,

Alex Zahlten



-- 
alex at nipponconnection.de

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