TIFF awards

Stephen Cremin asianfilmlibrary at mac.com
Thu Nov 2 00:16:50 EST 2006


I only saw a couple of the competition titles, Sakamoto's AWAKING and Lu Yue's THIRTEEN PRINCESS TREES.  I'm surprised the latter got a prize; there were much more exciting Chinese-language films in the Winds of Asia section including Tang Danian's YOUNG AND CLUELESS and Leste Chen's ETERNAL SUMMER.  I felt that PRINCESS TREES was just made for a television sale to CCTV-6 and DVD release, which would bring in less than $200,000.  Hence the decision to shoot on DV and throw in a kidnapping plot ... like so many of those made-for-TV movies in China.  I loved AWAKING.

Apart from Thessaloniki (which only shows films from first and second-time directors and only demands European premieres), Tokyo IFF is pretty much the last competitive festival of the year.  It's $100,000 prize money is now overshadowed by the $250,000 offered by the Rome International Film Festival earlier in October.  AFTER THIS OUR EXILE chose Rome, in part because that allowed it to also screen at the simultaneous Pusan IFF.  EXILE wasn't a Venice reject, it just wasn't ready in time (and perhaps still isn't ready in its current form).

Apart from the financial attractions of Rome, Tokyo IFF is also losing out to a more aggressive Pusan.  Pusan screens a huge number of films and requests them early.  The Tokyo competition section seems to be slow at deciding what they want, and sales agents can't wait for them to make up their mind when they're getting emails and phonecalls from Pusan pushing them on a decision.  Venice succeeds because Marco knows exactly what he wants, unlike Berlin and Cannes who can be indecisive.  (Although Venice still has a committee structure.)

Like Shanghai IFF, Tokyo IFF is ranked by FIAPF as an A-list festival.  Which does more harm than good for Chinese and Japanese cinema.  Local films that compete in Shanghai and Tokyo are no longer eligible to compete in other A-list festivals, such as Berlin and Cannes.  So, AWAKING now can only go to the Berlin Panorama, not the Competition.  The FIAPF ranking also damages the festivals.  AFTER THIS OUR EXILE can't compete in Tokyo because it's already competed in Rome.  But Hong Sang-soo's WOMAN ON THE BEACH can, even though it's had just as much exposure internationally.

Pusan has thrived without the need of FIAPF ranking.  It's just something for the bureaucrats to be proud of, but is meaningless in measuring the real quality of a festival.  Where Tokyo does outshine Pusan (and Hong Kong IFF and Singapore IFF and Bangkok IFF) is in its Asian programme.  Among the major film festivals in Asia, Winds of Asia has the most breadth, least orientalism and most exciting list of guests in attendance.  Despite the increase in the number of parties, it's still difficult to meet guests and Tokyo needs to do a better job of ensuring that at least directors can meet each other.

The biggest problem in Tokyo IFF is the difficulty of actually watching movies.  That's what will damage Tokyo in the long run when sales agents realise that their films are not going to be seen by buyers or press because the festival is trying to maximise profits with ticket sales to the public.  It also lost a lot of goodwill from Taiwan directors this year we were upset that they gave Tokyo their films, but weren't able to easily see other films in the festival.  In future years, they'll be prioritising Pusan, which actually has its own problems in this area.

Stephen

 
On Monday, October 30, 2006, at 01:53PM, "Rob Schwartz" <gangamati at gmail.com> wrote:
>I heard from reliable sources that Maco Muller fought hard for Forgiveness
>(my choice as well) but couldn't get enough people on his side.
>
>The critics should have ranked it last. OSS 117 is NOT a prize winning film,
>the decision is extremely disappointing and raises some serious questions.
>
>On 10/30/06, Jason Gray <loaded_films at yahoo.co.jp> wrote:
>>
>> It's true -- Yanagimachi-kantoku did dissent (despite
>> Jeunet stating that they all agreed quickly on the
>> winner). He said that while he enjoyed "OSS 117," he
>> didn't think it was worthy of the top prize. He stressed
>> that the entries from Asia were stronger. I don't think
>> jury member Marco Muller cared either way, as he was
>> focusing his praise on Patrick Tam's "After This Our
>> Exile," the first Winds of Asia title to also grab a prize
>> in the competition category (Best Artistic Contribution).
>>
>> Interestingly, in the TIFF daily newspaper there was an
>> ongoing poll of 7 of Japan's major (most widely read?)
>> critics which ranked "OSS 117" dead last, while Sakamoto
>> Junji's "Awaking" was at the top.
>>
>> If anybody happens to subscribe to Screen Daily, I did
>> post-TIFF and TIFFCOM/TPG write-ups:
>>
>> http://www.screendaily.com/story.asp?storyid=28324
>> http://www.screendaily.com/story.asp?storyid=28307
>>
>>
>> jason
>>
>>
>>
>


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