[KineJapan] Osaka Asian Film Festival

Thu Mar 22 21:32:54 EDT 2018

Actually, the translation situation at OAFF is very fascinating to me.

The subtitles are almost always (always?) English and Japanese. But they
are very inconsistent in quality. I had the feeling the Japanese were
fairly standard, if not high. From what I hear, most of the films are going
straight from the local languages to Japanese without being routed through
English. There are well-known specialists for south Asian languages, and
they even have an enthusiastic SE Asian translation team from Kyoto
University. The latter—Kobayashi-sensei and Nishi-sensei—held an
interesting panel discussion this year on Chinese Indonesians in cinema.

The English subs were of varying quality. Lim Karwai, a Malaysian filmmaker
who lives much of his life in Osaka, showed a film he shot in Ljubljana (!)
on a micro-budget. Lim did the English subs, which were embarrassingly
poor. I saw at least one other film that seemed to have been done via
Google Translate. Others were great.

In contrast, the level of interpretation is very high. They bring in
interpreters from Tokyo that specialize in cinema. And they are going from
Indonesian, Cantonese, Tagalog, and other Asian languages.

But my favorite translation experience of the festival was Riu-san. A burly
Taiwanese  that's been living in Osaka for three decades with his Japanese
wife. He is a "producer" for Japanese architects like Ando Tadao for
projects in Taiwan. This year, for reasons I don't quite get, he was tapped
to do the interpretation for Chang Yi and Yang Hui-shan. Riu has a huge
voice and a big personality.....and speaks in hard-core Osaka-ben. It was
lovely.

Markus

---

*Markus Nornes*
*Professor of Asian Cinema*
Department of Screen Arts and Cultures, Department of Asian Languages and
Cultures, Penny Stamps School of Art & Design

*Department of Screen Arts and Cultures*
*6348 North Quad*
*105 S. State Street*
*Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1285*

On Fri, Mar 23, 2018 at 1:07 AM, Japanese Cinema Discussion Forum via
KineJapan <kinejapan at lists.osu.edu> wrote:

> Thanks for your postings, Markus. I’ve never been to OAFF.
>
> Is there anything to say on translation? OAFF not titling themselves
> ‘international’, they aren’t actually obliged to provide English subtitles,
> but the full english version of all their pages carry that promise.  I
> guess these days that any fiction film aiming for an international
> distribution comes on a DCP which has English subtitles. So the festival
> has to concentrate on Japanese subtitles ? I saw some warning about their
> being hard to read.
>
> And the discussions and Q&As ?
> Roger
> macyroger at yahoo.co.uk
>
>
>
> On Tuesday, 20 March 2018, 12:19:22 GMT, Japanese Cinema Discussion Forum
> via KineJapan <kinejapan at lists.osu.edu> wrote:
>
>
> Osaka Asian Film Festival ended on Sunday (http://www.oaff.jp/2018/en/
> index.html). It is a VERY different scene from Yamagata and Yubari,
> that's for sure. For one thing, I think there is a lot more fun going on at
> those other festivals—at least for the professional crowd on hand. There
> are parties in Osaka, but their are fairly staid affairs sponsored by the
> embassies of various countries.
>
> There is definitely a local fan base for the festival, and I'm not sure
> it's an exaggeration to say that it's dominated by middle-aged women. There
> is a strong fanish thing going on. It's most obvious after the screenings.
> Q and As include photo op at the end, where the directors and stars stand
> next to their poster and look left....then center....then right.....then
> towards the video cameras. It's a strange ritual, and followed by a
> sain-kai in the lobby where fans line up to get stuff signed.
>
> One bad rap OAFF gets is that the films "aren't great." Well, true. But
> only in a certain sense. They are clearly out to please the audiences. The
> films aren't terribly definitely not extreme. If you look at their flier, a
> majority of the PR photos for the films feature young couples. Says a lot.
>
> It's not the way I'd program a festival of Asian cinema. But I to
> appreciate the opportunity to see some popular films that otherwise don't
> get shown at festivals or get distributed. They also hold discussions on
> different topics about different parts of Asia. This year, I learned a lot
> about what's going on in Indonesia, which is increasingly looking like an
> industry that must be reckoned with. Growing like crazy, with enormous
> headroom for huge expansion and lots of young, creative filmmakers.
>
> Unfortunately, I didn't see the Japanese films that got awards—especially
> unfortunate since I didn't care for the Japanese films I saw. I heard
> especially good things about one of the Japanese award winners: Hayama
> Moët's *KUSHINA, what will you be*.
>
> Actually, my favorite film of the festival was the out-of-competition *Poppy
> Goes to Hollywood Redux *(http://www.oaff.jp/2018/en/program/n06.html), a
> Cambodian comedy about a transgender revue that flees to the countryside
> when they get in trouble with gangsters. No pretense to high art here. Just
> lots of fun upending gender norms, stereotypes, genres—basically
> everything.
>
> But the highlight of the festival for me was meeting director Chang Yi and
> actress Yang Hui-shan. They were huge figures in the New Taiwan Cinema. At
> Osaka, they showed a delightful and often stunning beautiful animated film
> which had four different stories about dogs—mysteriously programmed late on
> a weekend night when kids couldn't go. Chang checked out from filmmaking
> nearly three decades ago to become famous glass artists, but took up the
> challenge of animation from Edward Yang; the latter was a good friend and
> died during the production of an ambitious animated film. But the reason I
> was anxious to meet them was that I walked blindly into a Taipei theater
> one day in 1984 and encountered their *Jade Love.* I was blown away by
> the film, and right after that Hou's *Summer and Grandpa's *and then
> Yang's *That Day on the Beach.* Because of this I discovered how amazing
> Asian cinema could be and soon found myself in grad school a couple years
> later. So it's no exaggeration to say Chang and Yang changed my life and I
> feel grateful Osaka Asian gave me the chance to meet them.
>
> Markus
>
> OAFF 2018 Award Winners! <http://www.oaff.jp/2018/en/outline/prizes.html>
>
> ★Grand Prix (Best Picture Award) / “No. 1 Chung Ying Street”
> <http://www.oaff.jp/2018/en/program/c10.html>
>
> ★Most Promising Talent Award / Mikhail RED "“NEOMANILA”
> <http://www.oaff.jp/2018/en/program/c09.html> Director
>
> ★Best Actress Award / IIJIMA Shuna "“Bad Poetry Tokyo”
> <http://www.oaff.jp/2018/en/program/c01.html> Actress
>
> ★ABC Award / “Take Me To the Moon”
> <http://www.oaff.jp/2018/en/program/c14.html>
>
> ★Yakushi Pearl Award / Ryza CENON “Mr. and Mrs. Cruz”
> <http://www.oaff.jp/2018/en/program/c08.html> Actress
>
> ★JAPAN CUTS Award / “KUSHINA, what will you be”
> <http://www.oaff.jp/2018/en/program/if06.html>
>
> ★Housen Short Film Award / “CYCLE-CYCLE”
> <http://www.oaff.jp/2018/en/program/if02.html>
>
>
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