SSFF & ASIA Osaka Report Day 5 (Last Day of the festival)
The excitement of Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia Osaka 2015 has finally come to end on this last day of Japanese silver week holiday, at the Knowledge Capital Theater of Grand Front Osaka. Every day, more than 1,000 audiences have come to the theater, and they all seem to have been enchanted with short films. One of the unique attractions of Osaka festival is that we offer breakfast (croissants, muffins and other sweet assortments) to audiences (limited to 300 people) at every first screening of the day, under the slogan “Eat! Watch! Double the fun times!” This morning, sweet assortments from “Dean & Deluca” were offered to the audience.
The last day of the festival kicked off with “Program B,” which consists mainly with audience award-winning shorts from “SSFF & ASIA 2015.”After the screening, a talk session was held with a guest speaker Mr.Zenbo Hidaka, hosted by the festival director Seigo Tono. Mr. Hidaka is a Buddha priest from Koya-san, home to an active monastic center founded twelve centuries ago by the priest Kukai (posthumously known as Kobo Daishi) for the study and practice of Esoteric Buddhism, situated on a small plain at the top of Mount Koya. A Tokyo University law graduate, Mr. Hidaka was working in a multi-media related company before becoming the Buddhist priest. He discussed about the role of short films as a part of multi-media studies, as well as the importance of “sharing the moment” with live audience which is becoming less practiced as people of today tend to spend more time alone with their computer and smartphones. When Mr.Hidaka noted tht one of the shorts was funded with “Kickstarter,” he said, “Actually, Kukai did the same thing 1200 years ago in Koyasan, when he tried to open the monastic center there. Kukai explained the importance of the center to the local people who lived there, and with their support, he go to make the center.”
Next up was“German Special Feature” program, hosted by the festival and Goethe-Institut Osaka, with shorts by award-winning directors including this year’s Student Academy Award winner in the “Foreign Film” category. After the screening, Ilker Catak, director of “Sadakat” which won the Student Academy Award, came up on the stage. He introduced himself first saying that he just arrived in Osaka last night, and that he is already enchanted with Japan. Regarding the film “Sadakat,”which is about a nurse in Istanbul whose family is jeopardized in a police investigation after she hid one of the demonstrators in a hospital room who was the target of police pursuit. Director Catak said, “My grand-parents came to Germany from Turkey in the 60’s, and I am half German and Turkish. I grew up in two different cultures and I know them both. I wanted to make this film when I learned a couple of years ago about young people who demonstrated before the Turkish government for their right of free speech.” He also talked about his other film in the program called “Alte Schule” a comedy about a pickpocket man who becomes in love with his female victim. “The two films of mine are very different to each other. This one is a bit of a romantic comedy. I don’t want to make same kind of films each time. I think a film director should be able to make different films,”director Catak said.
The third program of the day was “Focus on UK.” The program included a broad selection of films spanning documentary, animation, drama and other genres with a special feature short “Hollywood Portfolio,” created for the magazine “Vanity Fair.” The film stars 44 British actors and actresses representing the UK, such as Eddie Redmayne, an Academy Awards® winner this year, and Benedict Cumberbatch. After the screening, a talk session was held with Director Yoshimasa Ishibashi, whose credits include such short comedy series “Oh, Mikey!” and a feature film “Milocrorze” starring the famous and popular Japanese actor Takayuki Yamada. Director Ishibashi thanked first our committee by saying, “At the very early stage of the festival, maybe about 15 years ago, when Mr. Bessho founded this festival, I was invited to talk with him during a festival event. Since then, I am happy to see the festival grow, and you still invite me to the festival, so I’m very thankful.” When he was asked about his impression of the “Focus on UK” program, he said, “The second film of the program, “On Loop” was made in Royal College of Arts (RCA) in London. When I was young, I was an exchange student at RCA. I remember listening to a lecture hosted by Terry Gilliam. But what I remember the most was the passion towards visual arts I shared with friends at school.” Audience members laughed when he said, “Although I had to fund my own feature film, I could get by all these years because simply, I love what I do. I realized that a couple of years ago!” He also explained about how he now focuses his interest in stage directing. Ishibashi said, “People nowadays watch visual contents on their smartphones alone. I wanted to make something that people can share “lively”, and I think watching actors perform on stage is very important.” Curiously, Ishibashi’s comment is the same as the one of our earlier guest of today, Mr. Zenbo Hidaka, the Buddhist priest from Koya-san.
And finally, the last program of the whole festival was shorts were the latest Academy Award winning and nominated short films, including live action and animation works. Again, Director Yoshimasa Ishibashi was the guest speaker after the screening. He said, “The best thing about short films is that you come up with a story, and you can make it. My feature film “Milocrorze” which was completed in 2013, took 8 years to complete! Also, short films are filled with imagination, not necessarily commercial. They are cutting-edge films, and you can be obnoxious as director!” On the recent short film that he completed, he said that most of the propos in the films can be found and bought at “Yahoo Auction” site. “On my recent short film, I had one Mercedez Benz and one Mustang car, and I found both of them at Yahoo Auction. I bought the Mercedez for 300,000 yen and the Mustang for 100,000 yen.”
The Osaka festival ended with the talk session with Director Ishibashi. We hope that everyone who participated in the festival during this silver week enjoyed short films. Thanks so much for your support, and we hope to see you all next year!
