[KineJapan] The Future (?) of Tokyo Filmex

[Japanese Cinema Discussion Forum via KineJapan]

Hello All,

Hayashi Kanako, the director of Tokyo Filmex for all of the last 18
editions, has sent out a statement stating that she is resigning from her
position. In the statement Hayashi mentions that the recent restructuring
of Office Kitano – following the departure of Kitano Takeshi – led to a
downsizing of staff and the decision to cut ties to Filmex.

Since Office Kitano was instrumental in Filmex’s founding and the main
organization supporting the festival (with Office Kitano producer Ichiyama
Shozo serving as program director) Hayashi says she came, after considering
the remaining options, to the conclusion that it would not be possible to
continue the festival. At the same time Hayashi mentions later in the
statement that it is her understanding that Ichiyama-san will continue
Tokyo Filmex.

That the future of the festival seems fairly unclear is of course a real
shame. While many have seen Tokyo Filmex as losing some of its steam in the
last few years (and, like many festivals in Japan, it increasingly
struggled to find financial support) it remained an incredibly important
fixture on the Japanese festival scene. With long-running connections to
the Berlin International Film Festival and the Hong Kong International Film
Festival, Filmex was able to create important synergies. Many of the
retrospectives it organized – often strinking new prints, making films
available with subtitles for the first time - traveled on to Hong Kong and
Berlin, putting directors such as Okamoto Kihachi, Shimizu Hiroshi, Uchida
Tomu, Nakagawa Nobue, or Yamamoto Satsuo on the map for critics,
programmers, scholars and (importantly) DVD distributors in Europe and the
U.S.. These activities had suffered somewhat from the recent budget
struggles, but Filmex still served as an important and serious-minded
counterweight to the often much less highly regarded programming of the
Tokyo International Film Festival.

Let’s see how this develops and hope that the festival finds a way forward,
if probably in a somewhat different form.

Best,
Alex
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