Premiere Japan Weekend

05 September 08

Over an October weekend, BAFTA celebrated the very best in contemporary Japanese Cinema.

For the fifth consecutive year, Bafta's Premiere Japan 09 weekend showcased some of the best and most recent films to come out of Japan. This year we screened a series of six films not yet released in the UK.

In addition to the Japanese film screenings, there was the opportunity, between films, for all the family to try Japanese games, origami, calligraphy and dress up in Japanese yukuta.

Gama No Abura GAMA NO ABURA ガマの油

Yakusho Koji | 2009 | Japan | 131 mins
UK PREMIERE

Gama-no-abura, or Toad Oil, is well known in Japan as a traditional panacea, the ointment sold by itinerant pedlars to cure all wounds and relieve all pain. Yakusho Koji, the charismatic veteran actor of internationally acclaimed films such as Shall We Dance?, The Eel, and Babel makes his debut as director in this look into a world of Japanese magical realism. Takuro successfully plays the stock market from home in his mansion, his son, Takuya, is an earnest hard-worker and his son’s girlfriend is delightfully excitable. After a car accident Takuya falls seriously ill and Takuro finds himself distracted from his profit-chasing life by unfamiliar emotions and strong childhood memories of the magical world of the Toad Oil pedlar.

Dream Island DREAM ISLAND 夢の島

Tsuta Tetsuichiro | 2008 | Japan | 83 mins
UK PREMIERE

Shot in black and white cinemascope with exaggerated orchestral score, this remarkable independent film is a rather authentic nod to the Nikkatsu action films of the early 1960s. A young man who works on the now long-gone Dream Island (the much-maligned artificial island/rubbish dump built in Tokyo Bay) becomes an eco-terrorist driven by misguided patriotic sentiment. He is pursued by a police detective who comes to realise that he has spoken to this bomber on a number of occasions before. From the outset, it is a powerful film dealing with perennial social and environmental issues; a notable detective-drama and exposé of the inconsistencies of present-day urban society from the 23-year old Tsuta.

Mental MENTAL 精神

Soda Kazuhiro | 2008 | Japan/USA | 135 mins
UK PREMIERE

This striking award-winning documentary pulls back a curtain to reveal a glimpse of one of the last taboos of Japanese society: the unseen lives of those who suffer from mental illness. Mental is Soda Kazuhiro’s free observation of the complex world of patients and staff at an outpatient mental health clinic in Japan. The treatment of the subject is ground-breaking, filmed with an unusual objective empathy, removing the barriers often in place when looking into a subject such as this. The film raises fundamental questions about the human condition yet does not attempt to give any definitive answers. Instead, it gives the viewers the opportunity to attest for themselves and is “an unusual declaration of love to the civilising secrets of Japanese culture” (Wenner, 2009).

Teacher Three Children TEACHER & THREE CHILDREN 石内尋常高等小学校：花は散れども

Shindo Kaneto | 2008 | Japan | 118 mins
UK PREMIERE

In a return to the director’s chair after five years and at 95 years old, Japanese film veteran, Shindo Kaneto, based this film around his schooldays in Ishiuchi, Hiroshima towards the end of the Taisho era (1912 – 1926). It maps the life of Mr Ichikawa, a teacher and key figure in the early lives of Yoshito, Midori and Sankichi. Thirty years on, Yoshito, now a struggling screen-writer in Tokyo, plucks up the courage to meet his classmates again at Mr Ichikawa’s retirement party. He finds that much has happened in the intervening war years, not least in Hiroshima, and everyone has suffered injury or loss. In this, his 44th film, Shindo once again does not shy away from social comment.

Your Friends YOUR FRIENDS きみの友だち

Hiroki Ryuichi | 2008 | Japan | 125 mins
UK PREMIERE

A film of profound emotional intimacy, Your Friends is a departure from the pink movies Hiroki is best known for. Yet with his characteristic skilful depiction of the ordinary, this is a story of a young woman, Emi, outcast and crippled at a young age. Only a small number of relationships have defined her life, in particular that with Yuka, her closest friend from childhood. Nakahara, a photographer comes to the school for children with developmental problems where Emi works. He is intrigued by how she refuses to let people close to her yet expresses so much compassion for the children in her care. He especially wants to find out about the puffy clouds she gives to each child on graduation.

Nonko NONKO ノン子36歳（家事手伝い）

Kumakiri Kazuyoshi | 2008 | Japan | 105 mins
UK PREMIERE

Nobuko is a divorced woman in her thirties and the failed actress, Nonko. Lacking all ambition, she has returned home from the city to help maintain the Shinto shrine her parents run. Her humdrum life is dull. She has taken a step backwards into an unexciting parochial life where there is no escape; and she is bitter. Then the rather naïve and earnest Masaru comes along to ask for a stall at the shrine festival and reawakens the joy in her. Just as things are looking up, her former manager and ex-husband, Udagawa, arrives in town with a offer to start . A gentle comedy and an awkward love story. Starring Sakai Maki, this is a tale of how not give up.