Carlo Chatrian, the former Locarno and Berlin artistic director who is heading the main competition jury at this year’s Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF), talked about the growing importance of film festivals in a challenging market when he met the press today.
Chatrian is presiding over a jury that also includes Japanese actor and director Takumi Saitoh; Chinese director Vivian Qu, Taiwan-based French film editor Matthieu Laclau and Taiwanese actress Gwei Lun-mei.
He started by explaining how he attended TIFF in 2014 and was introduced to a film that was more than five hours long from a new Japanese filmmaker. “I didn’t have time to watch the film during the festival, and I shouldn’t say this, but I started watching it on the plane,” said Chatrian, who was working with Locarno film festival at the time.
“The film was so strong that I stopped playing it so I could watch it properly back in Locarno, then gently forced my team to watch it. They were all amazed and we selected the film. It was shown in a theatre for 3,000 people, and the most rewarding thing was watching the audience reaction and the applause at the end of the film.”
The film was Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Happy Hour, which premiered at Locarno in 2015, where it won best actress before going on to win a slew of awards at other festivals despite its prohibitive running time. Hamaguchi is now of course one of Japan’s most celebrated directors, winning an Oscar and awards at Berlin, Venice and Cannes for Drive My Car and other films.
In addition to their importance as a venue for discovery, Chatrian talked about how festivals are essential to introduce new films to both the wider industry and eventually the audience. “Festivals are a big filter – they filter from a huge audiovisual output and each year there is a larger number of films,” said Chatrian, before praising the work of jury members, programmers, academics and journalists in bringing films to audience attention.
“If a film stays around longer, it’s because of the film itself, but also because of the way the film has been communicated by the press and the film industry community. And we need that because I believe most of the films being selected for festivals don’t have distribution, so maybe they will find a way through other networks.”
He continued: “But this is something that makes me sad, because there are so many strong, beautiful films and if it wasn’t for film festivals there would be very few chances for these films to be seen.”
Chatrian’s fellow jurors also talked about the role of cinema and festivals in bridging countries and cultures. Saitoh, one of Japan’s biggest actors, who made his directing debut with Blank 13 in 2017, talked about his experiences of working on cross-border projects, including directing episodes of Folklore and Food Lore. The two HBO anthology series brought together talent from several Asian countries and were produced by Singapore filmmaker Eric Khoo.
“Over the past decade we’ve seen a lot more of these kinds of projects that are crossing borders,” Saitoh said. “We live in a time and an era where we cannot be unaware of borders – there are differences and we need to cross them – but I believe cinema is one of the best ways to overcome borders. Tokyo International Film Festival is one of these places where we can introduce the potential and diversity of cinema.”
Chinese director and producer Vivian Qu (Girls On Wire, Angels Wear White) explained how she’s been involved in international co-productions for 10-15 years, working with her fellow jurors Gwei Lun-mei on Black Coal, Thin Ice and with Laclau on her first film Trap Street, which went to Venice.
“It’s become almost routine that filmmakers from different countries are collaborating and bringing their local stories to an international platform,” Qu said. “Tokyo has always been an important platform for bridging Asian and global cinema; the festival has done a great job. Especially now, cinema is facing big challenges, and I think festivals are probably the last sacred place for cinema viewing. So I think their role is even more important now than before.”
“Whether you’re a programmer, filmmaker or actor, we all have the responsibility to bring our own stories to this place to let the world see them and to tell people cinema is still valid,” Qu continued. “It’s still a very important part of our life.”
Laclau, who has edited Chinese films including recent Venice winner The Sun Rises On Us All and Jia Zhangke’s Caught By The Tides, said he was looking forward to being moved and surprised by the films in this year’s TIFF competition line-up. “You hope to learn something, see something you haven’t seen before. That’s what we’re looking for.”
Gwei Lun-mei, who recently starred in Japan-France-US co-production Dear Stranger, added: “From a filmmaker’s perspective, what is the angle or perspective this filmmaker is trying to convey, and how courageous are they in conveying that. Those are the things we evaluate when watching a film.”
TIFF opened on October 27 with a screening of Junji Sakamoto’s Climbing For Life and runs until November 5. A total of 15 films have been selected for the main competition, while 11 films will play in the Asian Future competition for emerging talent.