[KineJapan] Sion Sono invited to Poland

[Markus Nornes]

This Polish invitation is, I think, unfortunate. The allegations against
Sono are convincing and multi-sourced. I'm not sure what the present
situation is in the film industry, although Sono's been pretty quiet as far
as I can tell. I know of at least two big programmers who consciously avoid
working with him or his films. His name inevitably comes up in Metoo
discussions on and off stage.

It's not completely true he's been quiet, actually. He is in court
suing *Shukan
Josei* for publishing the allegations. As far as I can see, the case is
still pending.

Suing or threatening to sue is so typical. Sono tried to snuff out the
pre-*Shukan
Josei *allegations in social media by threatening to sue Matsuzaki Yuki.
Sono's lawyers sent a scary letter demanding he take down all social media
posts, never utter Sono's name again, and issue a public apology. Matsuzaki
blew through all the threats, but I imagine other people got such letters
as well.

In like manner, this summer's allegations
against critic/programmer/filmmaker/professor Kaneko Yu involved lawsuits.
The original social media posts by actress Mizui Maki were over a decade
old, but Kaneko successfully sued her in court back then. The details are a
bit unclear, but he won a narrow defamation claim. At the same time, the
matter of the power and sexual harassment seemed to be beyond the court's
purview...like I said, it's unclear. The allegations of power
harassment are quite compelling; the rape allegations will probably remain
grey and undecided because the victim committed suicide last July. Once
again, Matsuzaki threw himself into the mix via social media, and once
again was threatened with a lawsuit. But the heat became intense enough
that Kaneko made a vague admission of "bad behavior" and promises to "be a
better human." He pulled out of the directorship of Tokyo Documentary Film
Festival, ceased his prolific publishing activities, and resigned from his
position at Tama Art University. This was just as at least one mainstream
media outlet picked up the story—but they dropped everything upon Kaneko's
resignations.

It's striking that this is mainly happening in social media and *shukanshi*.
One wonders if the recent Johnny's reportage will change much when it comes
to public reckonings in the press. The corruption is so intertwined at
every level. But just the threat of lawsuits is obviously an effective tool
of the perps.

This is clear from reading the HW investigation accounts by Ronan Farrow,
Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey. I suspect some of the critics on KineJapan
have personal experience with gun shy editors and their lawyers.....

In any case, the Polish invite is too bad, but could be an opportunity to
ask questions that he'd never get asked at a public forum here.

Or maybe he would, if he appeared in public. Things are changing a little,
I notice.

Harada Masato appeared at FCCJ a few weeks ago (for Badlands, which was
interesting and had a rousing performance by Ando Sakura). More Johnny's
news had just broke, and when it wasn't the first question from the press
conference he started his answer-of-a-different-question by expressing his
surprise, and then answering the question on sexual harassment he was
expecting.

At an Atene Francaise symposium on Vietnamese film, visiting filmmakers
spoke at length about Autumn Meeting
<https://www.facebook.com/autumnmeeting/>, an independent workshop for
young people wanting to break into the film industry. When they opened the
floor for Q and A, a woman asked a question no one was prepared for: with
all these older teachers from the industry and eager young people, have
they had problems with sexual harassment? It was so cheering and optimistic
up to this point, so the question really threw the stage for a loop. The
Vietnamese men all looked at each other, not knowing what to say. The long
female producer on the panel finally answered......no, not a problem at
all...in fact, they have lots of high school girls, and *strongly encourage
parents to attend with them*. Needless to say, this answer raised more
questions than it answered, but time had run out so there was no followup.
The entire theater seemed surprised by the question, but it's definitely
good to keep the conversation public. But it'd be nice if there were more
aggressive journalism in the mainstream press.

Markus


---

*Markus Nornes*
*Professor of Asian Cinema*

Department of Film, Television and Media, Department of Asian Languages and
Cultures, Penny Stamps School of Art & Design




*Homepage: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~nornes/
<http://www-personal.umich.edu/~nornes/>*
*Department of Film, Television and Media*
*6348 North Quad*
*105 S. State Street**Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1285*




On Mon, Sep 18, 2023 at 1:38 PM Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano via KineJapan <
kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu> wrote:

> Hello everyone
>
> Nina, thank you for your timely post. It seems that the differences in
> shared perceptions between different areas/cultures can't be helped.
> However, what I hope for the Polish mass media is that they have a sense of
> ethics to ask frank questions to the director about the scandals, which
> indeed lacks in Japan as we have seen in the case of Johnny's office.
>
> Best regards,
> Mitsuyo
>
> Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano, Dr.
> Director of Joint Degree Transcultural Studies
> Kyoto University
> Graduate School of Letters
> Yoshida-honmachi Sakyo-ku Kyoto Japan 606-8501
>
> https://www.cats.bun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/jdts/team/academic-staff/mitsuyo-wada-marciano/
> _______________________________________________
> KineJapan mailing list
> KineJapan at mailman.yale.edu
> https://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/listinfo/kinejapan
>
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