Japan’s Agency for Cultural affairs, Friday, announced the first young filmmakers to receive support under its new Film Frontier Global Networking Program.
The agency explained that Film Frontier will operate with two cycles, allowing the selected four a chance to brush up their presentation skills before then giving them opportunities to present at overseas film events. It will also connect young film makers with experienced professionals as mentors.
The four first recipients were named as: Kawawada Ema (“My Small Land”), Hasei Koki, Ohta Shingo and Nakanishi Mai.
They successful four were selected from over 40 applicants, the agency said at the presentation at the Lexus Meets venue within the Tokyo International Film Festival.
The financial and political underpinning of the Creative Support program was passed in last year’s budget. It aims to help young people to develop their careers and skills. Programs were announced in some 29 disciplines. Operation of the film segment was allocated to UniJapan, which envisages running in close connection with film festivals.
“All four of them were realistic,” said Ichiyama Shozo, the Tokyo festival’s artistic director, who headed the selection of projects and young filmmakers. “They are ambitious, but all able to appeal to an international audience and appear capable of getting completed,”
“This is considered as a strategic and new approach,” said Nakahara Hirohiko, from the Agency for Cultural Affairs.
France’s Christian Jeune was on hand to speak about the Cannes Residency program of the Cannes Film Festival, which is a role model for the new Japanese support effort.
“A festival is not a film school. Rather the Cannes Residence offers selected filmmakers a place to develop their screen projects and work freely without the interference of personal, political or financial problems. They can meet sales agents, producers and professionals which helps them to comprehend what the film industry is,” said Jeune. “The first aim of a festival is to show films. It is possibly the most spectacular way. But it is also an industry.”
Japanese actor and director Takumi Saitoh was also on hand to share his experience of going to the Cannes film festival this year. “It was a very rich and revealing experience” he said. “A chance to deepen understanding.”
Jeune offered further context and encouragement. “A director’s first film is often easier to make than a second film. A second film is much more complicated. It needs more money and structure. And ambitions are higher,” he said. “But I feel that Japan is traveling in the right direction. I can feel that over the last three or four years young Japanese directors are being selected for festivals and traveling all around the world. That is very exciting. And so is this kind of support effort.”
