AW: Nobuhiro Yamashita Interview Help

Wed May 9 04:07:50 EDT 2007

Hi Blake,

I guess Yamashita is talking about Watanabe Fumiki, a truely interesting filmmaker who makes very personal films that often triggered controversies.  
Watanabe was born in 1953 in Fukushima. He was a teacher and for years helped and reeducated teenagers who refused to continue their schooling. At 18, he began to produce and direct films. After his first two Super-8 films, he became interested in avant-garde films, especially in exploring the frontier between documentary and fiction. He experimented with that in several short films as well as in his first feature film, Katei kyoshi in 1987. His second feature length film, Shimaguni Konjo (1990), which was shown at the Cannes Film Festival in 1990, also focused on blurring fiction and documentary. To date, he has made short films, documentaries and fiction features. His third feature film Zazambo (1992), also shown at the Cannes Film Festival, confirmed Watanabe's position as one of the young hopes of independent Japanese cinema. This fiction film used documentary techniques to challenge the "official" theory of suicide as it reconstituted the circumstances surrounding the death of a young man thought to have burgled a school despite his declarations of innocence. Bari Zogon (1996) was again based on a real-life incident, the death of a 26-year-old man, which police called an "accident". The man had disturbed the order of things locally and all the way up to higher levels in the Japanese government by campaigning against an unsafe nuclear plant and Watanabe dramatizes his life and "accidental" death, then enters his own film to badger those involved in the case into giving up the truth. His next film Hara hara tokei (1999) involved a plan of assassinating the emperor, which infuriated right wing groups that mobilized against the film. I haven't seen his latest film, Osutakayama (2005), but have read that Nomonhan, the film he is currently working on, will again be about the emperor system.
I can very well understand why Yamashita is fascinated by a rebellious filmmaker like Watanabe Fumiki.

Roland Domenig
Institute of East Asian Studies
Vienna University 

-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: owner-KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu im Auftrag von Blake Ethridge
Gesendet: Mi 09.05.2007 05:44
An: kinejapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
Betreff: Nobuhiro Yamashita Interview Help

Hi all I'm Blake and a huge fan of Japanese cinema and new to this group.
I also formed a very similar e-mail group but for film festival die hards
like myself (recently attended BIFFF, Nippon Connection and Udine) called
Film Fest Mafia. I do online film press with Cinema Strikes Back and am a
huge film memorabilia collector (many of the images I've restored I have
posted online). The biggest memorabilia item from Japan I own is an
original Lady Snowblood lobbycard set. You might have seen my recent
interview with Sabu here: http://www.cinemastrikesback.com/?p=1568

Right now I'm finishing up an interview with Nobuhiro Yamashita (Linda
Linda Linda). In one section of transcribing I can't for the life of me
figure out the Japanese filmmaker he is talking about. The name sounds
like something Watanbe. I'm not familiar at all with his work. If the
below question triggers any memory I would greatly be appreciated for
anyone that can figure out who he is referring to.

-----------------------------------------------------
Do you have any personal favorite film that you feel is under appreciated
and that people should rush out and see?

There is a filmmaker named Fumio? Watanabe. He has his own projector and
only goes to local culture centers and not in theatres. Very local and
small cultural centers and that's what he does. The films that he shoots
and screens is maybe too much propaganda. What he does in terms of getting
his film out there is very interesting and inspiring for other filmmakers
in terms of getting the word out. It's very scandalous somewhat with the
amount of propaganda and he gets arrested and fights with right wing
group. What he does is very true to what he believes and I think that is
very cool.
-----------------------------------------------------

Blake

pspsps - Of late the film that has had the biggest impact on me is the
Sogo Ishii film Crazy Thunder Road. I saw an absolutely incredible print
of it at the recent 25th BIFFF in Brussels, Belgium (burned in English
subtitles). I had heard this film was some sort of student project so I
was completely unprepared for the complete all out last day alive type
filmmaking on display in the film. Perhaps every narrative thread doesn't
add up but the creativity and passion on display goes miles for me in
admiration. I had goose bumps throughout experiencing most of the film.

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