[KineJapan] Osaka Asian Film Festival

Tue Mar 20 08:19:02 EDT 2018

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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