JF Waste?

[Jasper Sharp]

Can I just also add one small point of interest here. I work quite closely with the JF UK in London on their annual touring programme, and as has been correctly pointed out, one doesn't have access to the lists of their holdings, but if you ask for specific titles or directors, they will tell you, which is how I managed to get Shindo Kaneto's little-seen Live Today, Die Tomorrow shown across the UK last year - which I should add, as so few people actually went to see both this and Kumai Kei's A Chain of Islands, is the last time the JF UK are going to include older titles as part of their tour. Anyway, I digress. The fact is, there are some really interesting older films there which aren't available on subbed DVD and are not particularly known to overseas audiences, but they are only on 16mm, a format most venues in the UK no longer handle, so sadly the bulk of their holdings will never be seen - though from what Aaron writes, I assume they are still being paid for by the Japanese tax payer. 
I don't think the Japan Foundation have any prints of actual pink films, but they do have some Roman Porno films by Nikkatsu's more respected directors such as  Kumashiro Tatsumi and Tanaka Noboru - I'll hold up my hand here to the Asahi Shinbun's accusations, as I had a hand in a fairly prominent season at the BFI last December which made use of the Japan Foundation's prints, although actually only a couple came from them. I would add as a rebuff to the journalist in question that considerably more people went to see Wife to Be Sacrificed at the BFI than the Haneda Sumiko documentaries that played at the same venue 6 months earlier. 
I'm not sure of the political or class-related allegiances of the various newspapers in Japan, but this article reminds me of the type of thing we get in the more idiotic conservative press in the UK, I mean of course the Daily Mail, who had a go at the BFI earlier this year for their DVD release of a collection of British sex education films from the past century, entitled Joy of Sex Education. 

Jasper Sharp

Midnight Eye: The Latest and Best in Japanese Cinema
www.midnighteye.com

More details about me on http://jaspersharp.com/




> Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 20:17:07 +0900
> From: aaron.gerow at yale.edu
> To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
> Subject: Re: JF Waste?
> 
> Thanks Mark, again, for a long and on the mark response.
> 
> I posted my commentary to my blog (as I sometimes do, but after  
> cleaning it up a bit) so it has been "published" in a very small  
> fashion. And since I subscribe to an analytical service that tells me  
> about site visitors, I know how small a fashion this is (not many  
> people come to my site). But I did notice there there were a lot of  
> people from the Japan Foundation accessing my site today for various  
> reasons. At least someone is reading it.
> 
> As for publishing these issues, I certainly think something should be  
> done. I have thought about trying to write up something for the Asahi  
> or some other paper on problems of film study and corporate rights,  
> but connections are always helpful.
> 
> And Mark, you are right that a big issue I didn't have time to get  
> into is the nature of these contracts. From my understanding, the JF  
> owns none of these prints. They merely house them under contract. In  
> some cases, they help organizations show them, but only if the  
> organization pays the copyright holder; in others--and this was the  
> problem cited in the article--they use those films to show at their  
> and related facilities. They thus assert few rights over them. But as  
> I have said before, the JF should be pressuring these companies to  
> facilitate the spread of Japanese film (by lowering screening fees or,  
> as here, not requiring multiple screening contracts paid in advance).  
> But it is clear that Japanese cultural institutions are largely  
> subservient to the corporations. As I keep complaining, rights-- 
> especially copyright--are something that can serious strangle Japanese  
> cinema. And it is not only the JF: the FIlm Center basically ignores  
> their and their users' fair use rights and often denies this or that  
> use of a film by citing copyright or contract stipulations.
> 
> In many of these cases, only outside pressure (using the media) or  
> decisions by higher ups (I think the Bunkachokan may be a good place  
> to start) is going to get things moving.
> 
> Aaron Gerow
> Associate Professor
> Film Studies Program/East Asian Languages and Literatures
> 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
> site: www.aarongerow.com
> 
> 
> 
 		 	   		  
_________________________________________________________________
Download Messenger onto your mobile for free
http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/174426567/direct/01/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/kinejapan/attachments/20091105/6b438b1c/attachment.html