Terracotta 2013 = East Asia x 27

Tags

Film Festival, London, Terracotta, trailers

Here it is… the much awaited line-up for this year’s Terracotta Film Festival, bigger and better than ever. It’s divided into four sections (Current Films, Terror Cotta,  Spotlight on Indonesia and In Memoriam of Leslie Cheung and Anita Mui), all screening at the Prince Charles Cinema (June 6–9), except for the Indonesia section, which will be held at the ICA (June 11-15). Further festival highlights include masterclasses and a short film competition (with a trip to Hong Kong as top prize).

Because it’s such a lengthy list of films, I’ve limited myself to one-sentence synopses. If it grabs your interest, watch the trailer and/or hop over to the official festival website, where longer summaries are featured.

The official website has just gone live, although links for booking (which is meant to open today) don’t yet work. I would expect booking to be available some time later this afternoon.

Remember O Goddess Update: Mr. Padam Padam

Tags

Jung Woo-sung, Lee Yoon Jung, Remember O Goddess

It’s been a while since we have had news about the indie film project 나를 잊지 말아요 (Naleul Ijji Malayo/Remember O Goddess, South Korea), but Lee Yoon Jung recently posted an update with some big news: there has been a change of cast! Not just any cast member either, but the lead.

Review: 「ももいろそらを」 (Momoiro Sora wo/About the Pink Sky)

Tags

London, Raindance Film Festival

Year: 2011
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
Director: Kobayashi Keiichi
Screenplay: Kobayashi Keiichi
Cinematography: Kobayashi Keiichi
Soundscore: No soundscore.
Cast: Ikeda Ai, Koshino Ena, Fujiwara Reiko, Takayama Tsubasa, Togetsuan Hakuysu
Runtime: 117 min
Distribution: Uzumasa
Official webpage: http://www.momoirosora.jp (日本語/English)
Official FB page: https://www.facebook.com/thePinkSky?fref=ts
Twitter: @momoirosorawo

Trailer (subtitled):

Seen at the Raindance Film Festival in London, where Momoira Sora wo had its UK premiere and screened twice.

The heroine of Momoiro Sora wo is called Kawashima Izumi (Ikeda Ai). Izumi has no superpowers – she is not that kind of heroine, but rather an ordinary seventeen year-old girl. Izumi is gutsy and frank. She reacts impulsively – whipping water with a fishing rod a gazillion times in a sudden and extended explosion of frustration – and gives a wide, sheepish smile when she is fibbing, which happens on a regular basis. Although she doesn’t always know what she actually wants, she stays true to herself even if her sense of fairness is a little warped, at least from the point of view of others.

Trailer Weekly #73

Tags

Ikuta Toma, Masaki Okada, trailers

And one more Trailer Weekly – let’s get to all the filmic goodness right away:

Oscar Noms, 2013

Tags

Oscars, Studio Ghibli, Sundance

The Oscars have limited interest in foreign or indie films, so I personally don’t pay all that much attention to them. I mostly peruse them like any other awards event or film festival programme – for interesting films that might have escaped me otherwise.

Review: 「愛と誠」 (Ai to Makoto/For Love’s Sake)

Alternative English Title: The Legend of Love and Sincerity
Year: 2012
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
Director: Miike Takashi
Adaptation from: Kajiwara Ikki’s manga「愛と誠」(Ai to Makoto, 1973-1976)
Screenplay: Takuma Takayuki
Cinematography: Kita Nobuyasu
Soundscore: Kobayashi Takeshi
Cast: Tsumabuki Satoshi, Takei Emi, Saito Takumi, Ono Ito, Andō Sakura, Ihara Tsuyoshi, Yo Kimiko
Runtime: 134 min
Film’s official website: aiandmakoto.jp (in Japanese)

Trailer:

Seen at the film’s UK premiere at the 56th London International Film Festival.

Back in the 70s Kajiwara Ikki wrote, in manga form, the story of Ai to Makoto (literally Ai and Makoto, names which also mean ‘love’ and ‘sincerity’), two teenagers on very different rungs of the social ladder whose paths fatefully cross. Angelic Ai inhabits the strata of the upper class, coming from a wealthy family that has sheltered her from all the hardships that exist in life. Makoto, meanwhile, is at the very bottom of the hierarchy: abandoned by his father and mother, he survives as a fist-fighting delinquent in the lowest echelons of Tokyo. It’s probably not the most original of stories – a modern-day Romeo and Juliet tale – but Kajiwara’s manga, which originally ran from 1973 to 1976 in the Weekly Shōnen Magazine (Kodansha), was almost immediately adapted to a dorama (1974) and to three films (1974, 1975 and 1976). More than forty-years on cult-director Miike Takashi (「クローズZERO」/Kurōzu Zero/Crows Zero, 2007; 「十三人の刺客」/Jûsan-nin no shikaku/Thirteen Assassins, 2010) dug the story out again and made it into…. well, that’s the question.

Trailer Weekly #58

Tags

Film Festival, trailers

I’m busy busy, so I’ll keep it short and go straight to this week’s selection of trailers.

November Events 2012

Tags

Barbican, Japanese Embassy London, KCCUK, Korean Film Night, London, Year of 12 Directors

November is here and I want some fog pretty please. And snow for my birthday – that’s on top of my wish list every year, but in this country it’s always a wish unfulfilled (in my native one, sometimes I get lucky, sometimes I don’t).

Events are winding down a bit after the super-intense month of October (Raindance, BFI Festival, Scotland Loves Anime, etc.)… or maybe it’s just because I’ll be missing out on some of them that the month doesn’t feel quite as overwhelming, for quite a few events are scheduled, including the ever-bigger London Korean Film Festival and the Leeds International Film Festival.

Note 1: This page will be updated as more information becomes available. If you see anything I have missed, do alert me to it!

Note 2: This month’s Events image is inspired by 우리들의 행복한 시간 (Woorideuleui Haengbokhan Sigan/Maundy Thursday aka Our Happy Time, 2006), which will be screening at the KCCUK. Originally a Korean novel, it became a (Japanese) manga (「私たちの幸せな時間」/Watashi-tachi no Shiawase na Jikan, 2007, by Sahara Mizu aka Yumeka Sumomo) as well as the Korean film.

LAST UPDATED: 12/11/2012

Late Japanese Addition to the London Film Festival

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BFI, BFI Film Festival, Film Festival, London, Matsumoto Jun, Q&A

I dropped by the BFI today because my festival tickets never did arrive in the post (so not impressed!). While there, I browsed the website a bit and noticed another Japanese film on the programme for the festival (which started today!): 「ジャパン イン ア デイ」　(Japan in a Dei/Japan in a Day, UK/Japan, 2012).

October Events 2012

Tags

Barbican, Japanese Embassy London, KCCUK, Korean Film Night, London, Miyazaki Hayao, Studio Ghibli, Year of 12 Directors

The film festival season gets into full swing (this month’s cover image should give you a visual impression of the deluge of films coming our way): Raindance continues, the madness of the UK’s biggest film event – the London International Film Festival - descends upon the capital, to be followed by the most comprehensive Im Kwon-Taek season that we have probably ever seen in this country, while J-animation fans get their fix up north at Scotland Loves Anime. Let’s hope we’ll all still be breathing when the month is over!

Note: This page will be updated as more information becomes available. If you see anything I have missed, do alert me to it!

UPDATED: 10/10/2012

Review: This Ain’t California

Tags

Film Festival, London, Raindance, trailers, world cinema

Year: 2011
Country: Germany
Language: German
Director: Marten Persiel
Screenplay: Marten Persiel, Ira Wedel
Cinematography: Felix Leiberg
Animation: Sasa Zivkovic
Music: Lars Damm, Troy von Balthasar
Runtime: 90 min
Trailer: Trailer 1 and Trailer 2
Film’s official website: This Ain’t California

This Ain’t California had its UK premiere at the Raindance Film Festival (London) on September 27, 2012. Details here. It also screened in German cinemas this summer and has been shown at a number of international film festivals. It will be the closing film at the annual Berlin & Beyond Festival in San Francisco on October 4, 2012.

A few years back the International Baccalaureate (IB) issued a quote for its students the world round to discuss in their Theory of Knowledge examination essays: “History is part myth, part hope and part reality”. Der Spiegel, a German-language weekly from the popular press, missed the lesson, writing the following in its review of This Ain’t California:

Zu rasant, um wahr zu sein: Der preisgekrönte Film “This Ain’t California” über die Skater-Szene in der DDR kommt als Dokumentation daher. Dabei ist vieles erfunden und nachgestellt. (Translation: “Too daring to be true: The award-winning film ‘This Ain’t California’ about the skateboarding scene in the German Democratic Republic pretends to be a documentary. Much however is invented and reproduced.”) (quote source)

Trailer Weekly #51 (Make-Up Trailer Weekly #3)

Tags

adaptation, BFI, BFI Film Festival, Film Festival, London, Studio Ghibli, The Hobbit, trailers

I’m finally getting in that third and final Trailer Weekly I had to make up for from my blogging hiatus in May. South Korea and Japan are back on the menu, which is chock-full with films on sensitive, controversial and intriguing issues: transgender identity, homosexuality, disproportionate age gaps in relationships, being female in a highly patriarchal society, surreal fables and meditations on silence and exile. It’s an eclectic and eccentric mix, but that’s how I like it.

Days of Shorts: Cambridge, Raindance & BFI

Tags

BFI, BFI Film Festival, Film Festival, London, Raindance

Lots of shorts from East Asia are showing at events and festivals in the autumn as well. Coming up:

ジパング・フェスト: Zipangu Is Back

Tags

Film Festival, London, Zipangu

It’s the third edition of the Zipangu Fest, which this year takes place at the Cinema Museum, Kennington, South London from September 14 to 16, 2012. Zipangu is the brainchild of Jasper Sharp and brings you some of the rarer Japanese films:

Zipangu Fest (ジパング・フェスト) is the first UK-wide festival devoted to Japanese film, introducing works new and old, many previously unseen by mainstream UK film audiences, to demonstrate the many identities of Japan as depicted by some of the country’s most exciting and revered talents. (from the official press release)

This year includes “re-scored silent classics, animation, experimental and Brazilians in Japan” in sections entitled Zipangu Retro, Spirit Made Flesh, Fukushima 8, Beyond Anime, The Melting Pot Japan and Nekophilia:

Trailer Weekly #46

Tags

documentary, Film Festival, Hosoda Mamoru, trailers

There you go…. fingers crossed that WP will work long enough for me to post this! It’s been buggy all morning. Well, it may be the internet service but most other websites do work!

Trailer Weekly #45

Tags

Kawase Naomi

WordPress has been a bit buggy for me today (not loading properly), although I’m not entirely sure if it’s really WordPress or just my internet connection, even if most other websites have been working fine. We did have the electricity cut for a little while two days back and water has been intermittent, so I just generally feel that things are only half-working at the moment. Not that there is much that can be done about it. There are emergency water trucks, which are apparently free of charge but you need to bribe for them to come to your house (rather hilarious I think!). When they do come, the hoses they use are full of holes and the trucks are dripping water, so it’s no wonder there is a water supply problem in Delhi! That’s how things go here…

If I had to come up with a list of keywords for this Trailer Weekly it would probably be Thailand-as-setting, documentary and children. Not because all the films featured share these aspects, but they come up a few times.

Trailer Weekly #44

Tags

Peter Jackson, The Hobbit, trailers

Sunday, Sunday. I have made it to New Delhi by now, where it is hot (to the point of melting, but I don’t mind) with occasional bouts of monsoon rain (nothing too heavy yet although I’m hoping for more, not because of the heat, but because I rather like the monsoon). I am not actually on holiday, but I came due to my ever-present need not to stay just in one place as I get too restless (after-effect of being a TCK). I’m rather lucky that I have places I can go to relatively easily – my Dad is based for work here.

Not being in London does mean missing out on just about all August events, but I packed a pile of DVDs and hope I’ll get through at least some of them and also catch up on some of my review backlog. I say “hope” because I also brought a whole lot of other work for my PhD project, other academic research and editorial work and assignments for one of my freelance jobs. Yeah, not really a holiday. Well, at least I get to eat mangoes every day.

On to trailers: it’s a mixed batch this week – some which I can’t wait to see, others that I’m not quite sure about.

Trailer Weekly #43

Tags

BFI Film Festival, Hosoda Mamoru, Korean Film Night, Year of 12 Directors

Juuuuust posting this in time before Sunday is over – I had nearly finished the Trailer Weekly a few hours ago, but then a Japanese friend of mine came for dinner and I was (happily) distracted for a while, enjoying lovely company and yum food (oven grilled summer veg from the farmers’ market + couscous with sour cherries and pistachios + Korean style edamame & cucumber salad + cherries + Greek coffee).

This week’s Trailer Weekly begins with lots of USAmericana (including some big budget films), but trailers from Japan and Korea follow as well.

Trailer Weekly #42

This is going to be an anime Trailer Weekly. Just because. A super short one too, but I’m literally falling asleep here and just cannot concentrate (「スローダンス」/Slow Dance, Japan, 2005 is to be blamed for this. I was watching till 3 a.m. – up to and including episode 9 – and had to get up at 6:30 for work). Apologies for any typos. I will fix them tomorrow.

Trailer Weekly #41

Tags

BFI, documentary, Katabuchi Sunao, Kon Satoshi, Miyazaki Hayao, Studio Ghibli, trailers

Apologies for not posting much lately (so it feels to me in any case), but I’m quite busy with my studies and work at the moment. I won’t be in the UK for the entire month of August (gotta escape the chaos of the Olympics), and am trying to get as many hours in as possible before going away. Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean that I will be particularly less busy next month, just that I won’t have immediate deadlines and meetings with my supervisors.

Trailer Weekly #40

Tags

BFI, Peter Jackson, The Hobbit

“Verregneter Sommer” is a good way of describing today. It’s mid-July, but it has been a semi-chilly, on again, off again rainy day, which really makes it seem not like summer at all. “Verregneter Sommer” actually is a bit hard to translate, “rainy summer” doesn’t really do it justice because “verregnet” means more something like “overly rainy” or “rainy again and again”. The Duden in fact makes it “durch zu lange andauernden Regen verdorben werden” (“to be ruined by rain that continuous for too long”, my translation), which veers a little too much towards the negative in my opinion. But, before this ends up being a pure vocabulary lesson, let’s also make it a literary one.

Trailer Weekly #35

Tags

Film Festival, KCCUK, London, trailers

I have been spending quite a bit of the weekend at the cinema, enjoying the BFI’s Anime Season with「ホッタラケの島 〜遥と魔法の鏡〜」(Hottarake no Shima: Haruka to Mahō no Kagami/Oblivion Island: Haruka and the Magic Mirror - touching but with narrative weaknesses) and「アキラ」(Akira/Akira - more violent than I normally care for but oh so brilliant) on Saturday and – after rushing there straight from work -「ももへの手紙」 (Momo e no Tegami/A Letter to Momo - another kind awesome) following today. Much of this Trailer Weekly was actually written during work hours, but I’m finishing it off after walking from the BFI Southbank (via the ICA and Chinatown) to Look Mum No Hands, one of London’s too few late-night cafés. I do have my bike with me, but sometimes after a cinema visit I feel rather reflective and the speed of cycling doesn’t quite go with it. So walk I did, in drizzling rain, and reflect too, about the films seen this weekend, London, life and the world. My mind still feels overloaded with thoughts and the only conclusion I’ve come to is that I’m feeling restless. Hmm.

Moving on to trailers….

Trailer Weekly #34

Tags

Film Festival, trailers

As promised, a make-up Trailer Weekly (with two more to follow over the next couple weeks).

Yesterday, when I posted the review for 「ヒミズ」 (Himizu/Himizu, 2011) and then added a link to the Trailer Weekly (#14) that featured the film, I ended up wondering if there would ever be a post where I would be able to cross off all the films. I don’t know. I post many more trailers than films that I am able to watch and review, or even just watch. In fact, looking through, there are plenty Trailer Weeklies from which I have not even seen one film, often for lack of time (and/or money) but also because it isn’t easy to see the movies I’m most interested in. They are not released in UK cinemas. DVDs are not always available, or are available but not with subtitles. Or they are sold with the wrong region setting (something that really irks me by the way). Hurdles of that sort.

Trailer Weekly #32

Before we get started on trailers, please head over to indiewire.com, check the four films nominated for “Project of the Week” and vote. (Hint: I voted Remember O Goddess. I did check out the others, but it’s still Remember O Goddess I want to see the most.)

As for this week’s trailers:

Kickstarting 나를 잊지 말아요 (Remember O Goddess)

I should have jumped on board with the project 나를 잊지 말아요 (Remember O Goddess) long ago already. But I didn’t have time to check it out properly and I am not one to support something without being fully informed. (Like that recent Twitter-trending initiative for a cancer-stricken 15-year old – everyone blindly retweeted without bothering to check the facts. Well, I did. No worries, the girl is real but she’s 16 – a detail that none of the retweets I saw got correct.)

Anyhow, I finally watched the 25-minute video today… and wanted more. So I’ll jump on board officially now and help drum up support for Remember O Goddess. But let’s start from the beginning…