Toronto, ON

Celebrating the new generation of films from Japan, the festival has become an avenue for young Japanese filmmakers to have their work screened overseas. It is renowned for presenting: dramas, quirky comedies, hard-hitting documentaries, experimental shorts and more. The Festival has also commissioned Toronto-based musicians and sound artists to create live scores for numerous classic Japanese silent films.

One early acquisition for The Festival’s 2012 line-up is the Canadian premiere of world renowned artist and animator Akino Kondoh’s new animated short film KiyaKiya.

The Shinsedai Cinema Festival has established itself as a vital part of Toronto’s lively and competitive film scene, representing a unique film project in the city. In 2011 the Festival received over 100 film submissions.

“One of the city’s youngest and most original movie events”

-          The Toronto Star

Gen Takahashi’s Confessions of a Dog received its Canadian premiere in 2010, and since then, the film has secured a DVD release in Britain and invitations for screenings from numerous festivals across the globe. The music documentary Aruongaku received its world premiere at the inaugural festival in 2009. It has gone on to be an anticipated part of the international festival circuit, winning praise wherever it has screened.

“The goal of The Shinsedai Cinema Festival has been to expose the great new films being produced in Japan to as many people in the city of Toronto as we can,” said MaGee. “The decision to move the Festival to the Revue, one of the city’s premiere repertory theatres in 2012, allows our audiences, filmmakers and out of town special guests the opportunity to enjoy the variety of cuisine, restaurants, pubs, and retail stores in Roncesvalles Village, before, between and after our screenings.”

“[Shinsedai] is wonderful! It gives young filmmakers a chance”

-          Yojiro Takita, Oscar-winning director of Departures

Programming information for The Shinsedai Cinema Festival at The Revue Cinema 2012 will be announced over the coming months and available online at www.shinsedai.ca.

The Shinsedai Cinema Festival was co-founded in 2009 by Toronto native Chris MaGee, author and founder and editor of Toronto’s own J-Film Pow-Wow, the premiere Japanese film blog in Canada, and Jasper Sharp, UK writer, film historian and curator. Its purpose is to bring modern, boundary-pushing and independent-Japanese cinema to Toronto audiences each year, challenging Western audiences’ understanding and appreciation of what Japanese film is, now, and where it is going.

The compilation is available to download now and to pre-order as a double CD.

This is a beautiful collection of music and a wonderful way to contribute to the massive rebuilding efforts ongoing in Japan. Also be sure to check out the other albums on unseen for some beautiful shoegazey electronica.

Tokyo, Japan — In just over a week, a group of professional and citizen journalists collaborated via Twitter to create a book to raise money for Japanese Red Cross earthquake and tsunami relief efforts. The book will be available for download via Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s Reader ebook platforms within several days. One hundred percent of revenues will go to the Japanese Red Cross Society.

The 98-page book, titled 2:46: Aftershocks: Stories from the Japan Earthquake and known on Twitter as “#quakebook”, is the brainchild of a Briton who lives in the Tokyo area and blogs under the pseudonym “Our Man in Abiko”.

The day after the earthquake and tsunami, Our Man in Abiko wrote on his blog, ”Is there anything you can do? Right now, I’m not sure. But I’ll think of something.”

A few days later, he did think of something. The former journalist put out a call on his blog and via Twitter for art, essays and photographs that reflected first-person accounts of the disaster. He decided he would edit them into a book and donate all the revenues to the Japanese Red Cross Society. Within 15 hours, he had received 74 eyewitness submissions from all over Japan, as well as reactions from elsewhere in Asia, Europe and North America.

In addition to narratives by journalists and people who braved the disaster, 2:46: Aftershocks: Stories from the Japan Earthquake contains writing created specifically for the book by authors William Gibson, Jake Adelstein, and Barry Eisler, as well as a piece by artist and musician Yoko Ono.

“The primary goal,” Our Man in Abiko says, “is to raise awareness, and in doing so raise money for the Japanese Red Cross Society to help the thousands of homeless, hungry and cold survivors of the earthquake and tsunami. The biggest frustration for many of us was being unable to help these victims. I don’t have any medical skills, and I’m not a helicopter pilot, but I can edit. I’m doing what I can do.”

With the book completed, the project team turned again to social media. In a matter of days, they created a website, Facebook page and Twitter account (@quakebook). The project quickly got attention from Twitter users like Yoko Ono as well as tech, publishing, and Japan-centric blogs.

“Twitter has been an amazing collaboration tool,” says Our Man in Abiko. “A few tweets pulled together nearly everything – all the participants, all the expertise – and in just over a week we had created a book including stories from an 80-year-old grandfather in Sendai, a couple in Canada waiting to hear if their relatives were okay, and a Japanese family who left their home, telling their young son they might never be able to return.

Soon we were working with the world’s biggest ebook distributors and fielding calls from newspapers and television stations on five continents. People around the world are responding to the message of #quakebook [and] I really feel we are on the brink of something amazing.”

Image by . SantiMB . via Flickr

Courtesy of Our Man in Abiko, this brought tears to my eyes. It is a sweet moment of pause amid the flood of terrifying news stories, and I just had to pass it along.

In my self-education about Japan, I have seen so much drama regarding politics, finance, foreign policy, national history etc etc that it’s easy to lose sight of why I fell in love with a country I’ve never even visited. This kind of post reminds me.

NB. I’ll write something reflecting on the past few days when I can; right now I just haven’t been able to yet. If you have questions please ask. Sitting around the dinner tables earlier half darkness, watching the latest press conference about exposed fuel rods at Fukushima Dai-Ni power station 247km north of here, I asked the gathered Japanese house-mates what they would do if the problems there worsened. One of them replied that their family l … Read More

via Distant land

image courtesy BBC

It’s impossible to get a full scale of the disaster yet – on the one side there is the devastating news footage of fires and floods, and on the other are the proofs that Japan’s civil engineering has kept so many people safe. Judging by my twitter feed alone, it would seem that most people are reacting with calmness and efficiency to such a wild and destructive act of nature. An 8.9 is simply inconceivable to someone like myself who has never even felt an earthquake before.

I wanted to use this post not just to reach out to the people I’ve gotten to know through this blog and Twitter,  but also to join in on the fundraising efforts for the aftermath of the quake and tsunami. I have always used the Red Cross for my donations, mainly because I trust them and I know that funds are shared. Either visit your country’s Red Cross website or if you have a phone contract then text REDCROSS to 90999 to make a donation of $10.

However, as a pro-equality and LGBT friendly blog I want to equally promote Doctors Without Borders. As my few regulars will know, I don’t use this blog as a platform for my own personal beliefs but I do reserve the right to put all the options out there. Disaster relief is never as simple and straightforward as many of us would hope, and some people have their specific preferences. It’s pointless to get caught in controversy: just help out in a way that you hope other people might do for you if your world suddenly fell apart at the seams.

Needless to say that while I am talking mainly about Japan, funds like these will most certainly be needed for surrounding countries – especially the recently stricken New Zealand. My husband and I live a pretty spartan existence, but we always try to find something to give in cases of natural disaster.

If you live in Japan or have any better methods of donating, please let me know in the comments or on Twitter @katiemuffett and I will update this post to point people in the right direction.

My thoughts and wishes are with everyone affected by this disaster.

Updates (in chronological order): this set of images has been making the rounds on Twitter and seems to best illustrate the impact of the quake, especially on Sendai

Nicholas Kristof wrote this superb piece about Japan’s response to crises for the NYT.

Got a trackback from this blog with Ways You Can Help

Tobias Harris (@observingjapan) sent this link where MIT students have set up a blog about the Fukushima nuclear plants – a must see for those who are subjected to the fake diagrams and ‘fallout maps’ currently making the microblog rounds. No excuse for misinformation in this day and age.

The fresh-faced JapanFlix has been selecting the tastiest flicks from all genres of eiga and giving them a much deserved US release. With all of them available to rent or buy through iTunes, it couldn’t possibly be easier to get a flavour of what we here in the States have been missing. I was given a special treat preview of the 2005 comedy Three String Samurai (オーバードライヴ in Japan), now available through the JapanFlix website.

There has always been a special place in Japan’s heart for the shamisen, both because of it’s native folk music connections and the peculiarly ancestral depths that it evokes.  The sound evolved around the late 1990′s, with the addition of multicultural instruments an expansion of the repertoire. In particular, the focus has strongly favoured the Tsugaru-jamisen native to northerly Aomori prefecture – which just happens to be where the story of our hero takes place.

But first, Tokyo: Guitar god Gen Asada and his two bandmates are in the midst of a PR crisis. At the peak of their success, lead-singer Mishio has sworn a sudden embargo on ex-lover Gen; and what is worse, on the entire guitar legacy he represents. “Music needs to evolve,” she declares to a frantic media scrum, with keyboardist Jin nodding dumbly at her side.

Drunk and disillusioned, Gen blunders his way out of their hotel vigil through the crowd of paparazzi and into the nearest taxi. However, a slight discrepancy of some four to five hundred miles has brought him to the Shimokita of Mount Osore (‘Mount Fear’, fabled entrance into Hell) and definitely not to one of the Bohemian epicenters of Tokyo.

Gen wails the eternal hipster yen to his mystery cabbie: “Where are all the cafes!?”

And so down the rabbit hole, where a mountainous ‘lair’ has a history of inspiring – and terrorizing – the likes of Van Halen, Jimmy Page, and Yo-Yo Ma (sort of). The camera settles in the exquisite, otherworldly Shimokita Peninsula*, itself geographically resembling something between a pickaxe and bachi (shamisen plectrum, or pick). Gen is set to experience the sharp end of every kind of axe in his Tsugaru-jamisen apprenticeship.

Three String Samurai is a loveable fun-fest wrapped around an ardent showcase for the shamisen. With a wink at the camera, viewers are bounced along by the sporadic animations and Shuji Kashiwabara’s handsome, goofy face. Amid the usual tropes of training montages and bumbling stooges, a whirlwind romance with a 500 year-old instrument takes place. Even the original prize intended for Gen winning the shamisen competition – the beautiful food-loving Akira (gravure idol and singer Anzu Sayuri) – fades when compared with the final mastery of the resonant Tsugaru technique.

While the scene shifts and humour may be a bit of a blur for Western viewers unused to J-pop culture, the laughs are meant to come easily and often. Even the dour, soulless Sonosuke and his Mephistophilic master can’t withstand the sunshine. A particularly beautiful effect is when Sonosuke (Hiroshi Nitta) – a nod to bluesman Robert Johnson – summons the darkness with his enchanted bachi, sending ‘shivers up the spine’. In fact, the impassioned performances by father- and- son Nitta (Masahiro plays Gen’s rival ‘Oishi’) are the major highlights of the film.

Eiga veterans Micky Curtis and Renji Ishibashi lend the old boy star power, and will be welcome faces to Japanese cinema fans. The girls take something of a backseat, but are refreshing. Pop idol-turned-actress Ranran Suzuki is adorably vacant and petulant. Anzu Sayuri’s kewpie doll face a lust for life are believable motivation for Gen’s decision to give this Tsugaru-thing a go.

Director Tsuitsui Takefumi seems to have long specialised in documentary format films, but has his own biggest feature flying in a bubble of pop and folk culture Technicolor. Considering his background however, it won’t be surprising to find that you, like Gen, have just been given the best crash course in the shamisen…without even noticing.

Further Listening…

For those who have fallen under the three-stringed spell, here are a few places to start. The Yoshida Brothers offer a more modern flavour, collaborating with world musicians to produce a trance/electro style; though the boys are always on the stylistic move, as in the dirty-cool ‘Overland Blues’.

The co-musical director for ‘Three String’ was shamisen master Shuichiro Takahashi, and a fresh sprig from his legacy can be found in the up-beat, eclectic Chanchiki led by a former student Takahashi. That is of course not to forget Shinichi Kinoshita, who has a cameo in the film appraising the handiwork of Gramps Igarashi.

For those in NYC this year, Carnegie Hall has a shamisen-devoted set of evenings throughout the city as part of their current JapanNYC season. You can actually see young Masahiro Nitta up close and personal at Zankel Hall on 25 March, and at a free concert the next evening.

Rock on.

Notes:

*Filming took place alternately between Aomori and the more Tokyo-convenient Yamanashi

For those like me who are not schooled in Japanese fables, the rabbit in the moon is explained briefly in Wikipedia.

Any readers who saw my original post on this Q&A will recognise my embarrassing question (at about 5:30 in the video below). In my writeup, I had to combine his answer to me with a few others just to make it fit into context. He had already talked about his friendship with Jun Miura and the kind of boys-night-out that he usually had with his mates. This roughly gave a clue into how my question’s response came about.

Watching this back, I don’t feel quite so bad because Taguchi is clearly smiling and joking. At the time – as my sister was silently dying of laughter next to me – my heart was slowly sinking into my stomach, thinking I’d come across as…well, I didn’t quite know what he thought!

Two things I love about this response:

1. The way that Taguchi prepares himself by wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

2. Poor Daichi Watanabe not hearing my original question, and absolutely cracking up at Taguchi’s answer.

Did my question make sense?? I didn’t mean to suggest…uhm…not that I…what?

Let me just say that I am all for male friends kissing and cuddling in bars, even if they don’t go home and shag each other! That is all.

My personal history of male infatuations is largely comprised of the angry and middle-aged types. Men who have reached their prime through the “thistles of ignorance, thorns of genius and blossoms of love”.* They wear their souls on their skin, and never lose the urgency to fight and to know. These men reject the poison-sucking of ‘friend zones’ and cutesy, nice-guy infantilization. They belong solely and unapologetically to themselves. They most certainly will rage against the dying of the light.

‘Screaming Philosopher’ Kazuki Tomokawa (aka Tenji Nozoki) is a prime specimen among these types. While he is in fact very attractive (those heavy-lidded eyes, romantic lips), no one could accuse his music of pretty affectations or self-consciousness. Even as a young man, he sang with the experience and depths of a much older, more ragged human being. A pretty person would simply be incapable of growling and spitting at the abyss, or whispering against the ear with such angelic tenderness…especially at 60 years old.

Yes, I am once again a shamelessly smitten, spazzy teenager when I hear Tomokawa’s voice.

Like so many, I had my personal discovery of Tomokawa in Takashi Miike‘s samurai-cum-time travel movie IZO. As much as I love the film (I can rarely afford to buy DVDs but had to have this one), it was the blazing troubadour and narrator to the demon samurai’s plight who won my heart. At turns sardonic and frantic, his singing and playing was a rare experience of a piece of art being cut through by a real, flawed human presence – and the flawed human wins.

To begin your own affair with him, I would personally recommend starting there – at least, his performances in it. Though if you are rather averse to violence in films, then iTunes* has a pretty good selection available. I have linked to a great fansite on his name at the beginning of this article with great bio information. Discogs also has some great resources for purchasing non-digital. Two personal favourites to get you started:  God Is Crying in the Well, which is like a lyrical kiss; Come, Next Spring never loses it’s tragic potency even after many, many listens. The album version is tinged with tenderness and regret, whereas the performance from IZO is far more raw and typical of his more recent style:

In my experience, it isn’t easy to find English translations of his songs. [The video above has a helpful translation by user ark80] I supplement my scant Japanese knowledge with patched together translations using a few online tools. It doesn’t really matter if you only get a vague translation, because the heart of the music is entirely in Tomokawa’s voice. In the same way that most people who listen to a Tchaikovsky concerto won’t understand anything about playing the violin, the truth and beauty are just the same.

Fortunately, a documentary from French filmmaker Vincent Moon will offer those of us outside Japan a more intimate knowledge of Tomokawa’s career and unique personality. I first saw this story on Toronto J-Film Powow almost a year ago, and have kept an eye out for more news since. La Faute de Fleurs has so far had a tantalizingly limited showing – though it has already won an award – and I just had to ask about a US premier.

I received a kind reply from Naohito who runs the website, saying that NYC is definitely in the pipeline. That was in August, so perhaps I can hope for a nice Christmas present. In the meantime, some superb videos can be found on the film’s website and on Moon’s Vimeo page.

Enough of my tender adoration: LoneWolf310 of Youtube waxes lyrical in a way that only the Internet can inspire:

lol i fell in love with this guy (no homo)after watchin IZO the other night, he really sings and plays with passion when reading about this movie they mentioned an “acid folk singer” so i thought hed be like a Japanese Bob Dylan but i never expected this lol he blew me away, now im thinking about going to pick up some of his stuff to listen to

Word.

*quote from a critic regarding Alphonse Mucha’s first solo exhibition poster

*the song links will take you to US iTunes – simply copy the title into the search bar to find it in your store – I am open to more professional song title translations as well!

In the never-ending search for ways to integrate Japanese into my very Western life, I have started a Tumblr blog that I am writing solely in Japanese. For those who haven’t tried out Tumblr yet, it is rather on the buggy side but very handy for micro- and photo-blogging. This miniaturist layout is especially useful considering that I can barely eek out 2 or 3 sentences of Japanese at a time.

I see this as the natural progression from trying to keep a 60/40 split of English and Japanese (respectively) on my Twitter account.  It is a brilliant feeling when a Japanese word or expression spontaneously comes to mind, rather than attempting a laborious translation from English. Yet the hard work must be done, and mistakes have to be made.

To that end, I have put a request in the sidebar of the new blog for all corrections and comments on my pre-school 日本語 to be left in the comments. I learn best by being corrected, not only because it leaves a deeper impression, but also because there are more than just one lesson to be learned.

For example, I was writing an email asking someone to read my blog so that I could have their opinion. I immediately remembered a correction from a native speaker on Lang-8 that 読書 (どくしょ) is only used for reading books, or discussing reading itself; the form 読む (よむ) is much more appropriate for internet reading like blogs and online articles. It may seem a small point, but I haven’t forgotten it.

99.9% of the bloggers I follow are on Blogger or WordPress, so it will probably take a while for me to get integrated into this new community. If you have a Tumblr then have a look-see at leaving me a few corrections.

Over on the philosophical/bioluminescent/日本語 wonder that is Gakuranman’s site, he recently held a competition for short entries on Japanese student learning methods. Considering how confusingly I worded that concept, I barely have enough mastery of the English language and therefore did not contribute anything personally. There are some excellent entries (click on the winner’s names to see their comments) and I look forward to his completed article on study methods.

おいしいいいい!

Being a beginner myself, I’ve got nothing in particular to offer. However, I did want to give props to one of the most clicked bookmarks on my browser toolbar: Tangorin. The site is the lovechild of Grzegorz Bober and the JMdict/EDICT collective, and the fruit of this vocabular orgy is – in my opinion – the best combination dictionary and grammar tool. (speaking of tools – see picture at right)

There’s a screencap of my browser – this tab is rarely ever closed.

Not so hot on interpreting your kanji, or finding word separation? Enter your problem text into the search box and choose ‘Examples’ from the drop down list. Only when my copy and paste skills have failed me has this not turned up some relevant choices. Clicking on words within an example handily expands the definition as an inset, rather than jumping away from the page, and can be closed just as easily.

Guaranteed to remember that one! On a side note, I cannot wait to see Anh Hung Tran’s film version of Norwegian Wood.