/ARTS WEEKLY/ASIA: Regional Films Get Top Billing in Fukuoka Festival

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

FUKUOKA, Japan, Sep 28 2004 (IPS) - Asian films usually play second fiddle to Hollywood in Japan’s competitive movie industry, but they enjoyed top billing at a region-wide film festival in Fukuoka, a bustling city in southern Japan.

‘’The Fukuoka film festival is one of the most important landmarks for Asian film development," Gautam Ghose, a young Indian film director, told an enthusiastic Japanese audience attending a showing of his feature film ‘Abar Aranye’ or ‘In the Forest Again’ here in September.

– Not only does the festival provide a venue for showing our films, but it is also the only festival in the world that preserves film, so important for struggling poor directors in Asia," he added.

Ghose’s film is a sequel to the 1969 film ‘Days and Nights in the Forest’ by India's most celebrated director, Satyajit Ray.

Fukuoka in the north of Kyushu, which was as a gateway to Asia 2,000 years ago, embarked on an official project to become this hub once again in 1990.

Since then, the city has launched various programmes ranging from arts, film, music and theatre, to bring the diverse and ancient cultures of the continent to the city during Asian Month, held each September.

The Asia Film Festival, which runs for two weeks, is a highlight of this programme. Organisers say the festival is geared to let audiences see Asian masterpieces that are not often seen in Japan or in the wider Asia-Pacific.

This year, the city saw 27 entrees representing 14 Asian countries in the film festival. With the inclusion of Japanese productions, the total will be 54 titles.

‘The Lizard’ from Iran, a sarcastic comedy about a fake clergyman that was almost banned in the country, and ‘Song of the Stork’, a joint production between Singapore and Vietnam, are some of the bigger hits in the film festival.

The films were shown in three designated cinemas daily, and also included lectures by directors and actors who were invited to accompany their productions.

The audience hovers between 200,000 to 300,000 annually.

For Ghose, who was on his first visit to Japan, the festival was of utmost importance, primarily as the invitation to join the festival enabled him to have his film debut before the Japanese audience and other visiting Asian film experts.

Ghose came with one of the main actors in his film, Soumitra Chatterjee, who plays the main character 30 years after he played the same role in the film by Satyajit Ray.

ôMy film aims to revisit the past and show the difference between the older and younger generations in India. Life is marked with memories, as the film shows," he told the Japanese audience, who clapped wildly.

Sri Lankan film director Sumitra Peries, wife of the world-renowned director Lester James Peries, expressed similar enthusiasm for the Fukuoka festival and its Asian flavour.

ôPresenting in Fukuoka is a wonderful opportunity," she said in an interview with IPS. ô"We learn from each other here and the high-profile promotion for our films sends an important message to Asian countries to rethink the importance of providing financial support for local film production."

She pointed out that the future of Asian film is being threatened by the popularity of cheaper and poor quality teledramas and the high turnout of Bollywood films that focus on entertainment rather than on serious themes.

This trend, she says, has made it difficult for talented young directors in Asia to pursue their craft.

Peries, respected internationally for her sensitive portrayal of the changing lives of rural women, showed her latest production, ‘Sakman Maluwa’, or ‘The Garden’, a story on the marriage between an older man and his much younger wife and their entangled life, symbolised by the entrance of a cobra.

The allegorical film is considered a landmark in the film festival. Fukuoka has already bought four other films by Peries for preservation in the Asia Film library, which is expected to grow to become the world's largest by 2050.

Some of the best patronised films during the festival were Chinese productions such as ‘When Ruoma was Seventeen’, a poignant film on the romantic awakening of a beautiful 17-year-old woman of the Hani tribe.

The film by Chinese director Zhang Jiarui is his debut in feature film. The movie is set against the breathtaking beauty of China's terraced paddy fields in Hanghe district in south-western Yunnan province, now a world heritage site. It drew gasps of awe from the audience. (END/IPS/AP/AE/SK/JS/04)