JF Waste?

[Roger Macy]

Marcus said: 'If  there IS one pressing problem it is that they keep the list secret.'

Surely it's more than that:  this is the first time I've understood that there IS a prepared list.  Surely, the JF's commitments to rights-holders cannot extend to keeping the EXISTENCE of a list secret, a la SCAP ?

To borrow an americanism, why isn't this a no-brainer ?  Why can't the JF say on their websites something to the effect that
" The Foundation maintains a collection of film prints in various formats, subtitled in english, roughly comprising the periods :-
1920s n
...        nn
2000s nn
The Foundation welcomes enquiries from  aaaaas and bbbbbs about the supply of prints, subject to prior agreement with the rights-holders and will be happy to give further advice. "

By implication, other groups would know their enquiries would be less welcome.  At the moment, the implication is that enquiries from anyone they don't know are unwelcome.  I've discussed with a few local Arts Centres and Film Clubs (which I guess have some correspondence with the Community Cinemas that Aaron mentions on his blog) about screening Japanese films.  They get interested, and expect to pay, and then it peters out when they can't get a future commitment to a screening date of a recent(ish) film.   There has been no suggestion that the Japan Foundation had any role to play in this.  Maybe they don't, maybe they do?  The 'Arts and Culture' section of this country's JF site does not mention supply of films, although searching again just now, I see a mention under 'Funding', which is not where schedulers would be looking, and anyway, it doesn't seem to offer anything that gets you anywhere off the starting grid.

Having said all that, it doesn't mean there's anything uniquely Japanese about this.  On the London scene, I'd be hard-put to think of  countries that deployed people knowledgeable about film to reach out beyond their own venues to a cineaste public.

Roger




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Nornes, Markus" <amnornes at umich.edu>
To: <KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Sent: Monday, November 09, 2009 5:35 PM
Subject: Re: JF Waste?
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/kinejapan/attachments/20091109/686d0881/attachment.html