[ad_1]
When Chiaki Yanagimoto first encountered cinema as a child, she fell in love with the filmmaking bug. She explains: Her mother regularly rented her VHS movies from the only video rental store in town and watched them together in the living room. She loved watching movies, so I naturally fell in love with them. “
Her love and passion for cinema continued to grow throughout her adolescence. “When I was thinking about what to do after high school, I wasn’t ready to start working and the only thing I wanted to study was film. I grew up in the 1990s, when American movies were very popular in Japan, so going to Hollywood was not an easy way to study film. There weren’t many school options, there were a few institutes, but they were mostly vocational schools that only taught me filmmaking skills. So I started looking for universities in America, specifically in California, rather than in Japan.”
Ultimately, that education led to the founding of SAKKA. This is an initiative set up to bring high-quality Japanese independent films to global audiences with as few filters as possible for filmmakers. As the site explains, “Cinephiles around the world know the great classics of Japanese cinema (Kurosawa, Ozu, Mizoguchi!). Japanese animated films have their own global recognition.” But what about all other Japanese films?The culture and soil that nurtured the Japanese classics are still inherited and nurture the masterpieces of the present age.More and more Japanese films are recognized at film festivals around the world. but most of them have not been able to fully flourish within traditional distribution systems, and we want to liberate those films and allow the world to discover them, while also bringing them to the place where they matter. I will return the power to the creator.” About her start-up, SAKKA, she said:
Exclusive interview with Chiaki Yanagimoto, the founder of film distribution company SAKKA
Q: When a Japanese film is released in the United States, it is common for it to be featured because it was a big hit in Japan or because it premiered at a prestigious film festival. However, SAKKA seems to be dealing with small but excellent works that have not yet seen the light of day. Are you ready for that type of film?
Yanagimoto: Let’s start by asking why SAKKA was created in the first place. My background in the film industry is actually producing. I have been producing his films for over ten years. When I go to various film festivals with my work, I come across works by Japanese directors and producers. Even if their films were well received at those festivals, when I returned to Los Angeles, I would never have the chance to see them again. When I spoke to the people involved, I saw several patterns. From that observation and the feeling that the status quo must change, the idea of creating SAKKA was born.
When Americans hear the word “Japanese cinema,” most of them think of classic Japanese films and directors such as Akira Kurosawa and Yasujiro Ozu, or animated films that have been particularly popular in the United States in recent years. I don’t have many opportunities to watch modern Japanese movies, so I felt that I didn’t understand them very well. So the first part of what we are doing at SAKKA is to bring to overseas moviegoers higher quality films that represent contemporary Japanese cinema. Now there is a whole new generation of talented directors in Japan doing interesting things. They want their films to be seen abroad, and some want to make films abroad. By creating a pipeline for their films to be screened outside of Japan, we hope these directors will have even more opportunities to work with people overseas.
Our name SAKKA is Japanese for “writer”. If you use it in a novel, you are a novelist. When used in the film industry, it’s the director.From the beginning, our focus has been on Sedimentfilmmaker.
Q: You are also connected to Japanese and Asian film festivals such as the Udine Far East Film Festival, New York Asian Film Festival, Nippon Connection, and New York Japan Cinefest, which are introduced on the SAKKA platform. Is there anything special about the festival? How do you approach and interact with people associated with film festivals?
Yanagimoto: Many festivals invite directors and producers from Japan, and Japanese distributors also participate in market festivals. First and foremost, I try to meet in person and introduce myself. If you want them to trust us with movies and babies, it’s much more meaningful to start with a face-to-face meeting rather than a cold email. Because it is not yet a large distribution company, opportunities to watch Japanese films are still limited. The opportunity to see Japanese films at your film festival has increased, and being able to see the reaction of the audience up close is also a big plus.
Q: How do you choose the movies you want to convey with SAKKA?
Yanagimoto: Hundreds of movies are made in Japan every year, so narrowing down the list is daunting. Fortunately, festival programmers from Japanese and Asian film festivals around the world already see a lot of films every year. We are aware of their choices and I often talk to these programmers and ask them what they recommend regardless of the final selection for the festival. I have a few movies to make. Programmers are great sources of information and know very well what your audience wants.
So, besides meeting with Japanese directors and producers, I also go to festivals and talk to programmers and festival directors. There are many great festivals around the world that focus on Japanese and Asian films. As SAKKA, we would like to feature as many film festivals as the core of promoting Japanese films around the world. The communities of these festivals are important to me and his SAKKA.
Q: Not long ago, Japanese producer Akihiro Wada, producer-director Taichi, and international studio NOMA set a goal to release foreign films in American cinemas without going through a distributor. announced CinemaAirLane. What do you think about the tendency of filmmakers to get their movies out of the way of distributors and create a system that benefits them?
Yanagimoto: Actually, I started SAKKA with a similar concept. There are traditional distribution systems that work for many films, but he doesn’t have one system that works for every film that exists. Certain types of films may require different approaches to reach their full potential. I think this is especially true for foreign independent films, in this case Japanese films. The recent surge in global digital distribution such as Netflix also did not provide a complete solution. Having seen all kinds of patterns in Japanese films, I began to think seriously about different approaches to distributing Japanese films. One of the “pillars” we set for this alternative approach was to bring the filmmaker and the audience closer together. I think one of the tragic side effects of applying traditional distribution systems to smaller foreign films is that they often leave filmmakers and local producers behind. I can’t see the delivery flow well, the report is slow, and I can’t feel the reaction of the viewers. As a producer, I was on that side. It easily happens when there are many “filters” between the filmmaker and the audience. So at SAKKA, we want to keep filmmakers transparent and remove as much of a filter between them and the audience as possible. In that sense, we have a common goal with companies like CinemaAirLane. I would like to clarify that I am not criticizing traditional delivery systems. Works perfectly for many movies. But I hope that more and more alternative approaches will be created that are better suited to other films. I hope SAKKA will be one of them.
Q: What do you think is missing from the current Japanese film industry?
Yanagimoto: I don’t have a general answer, but I think there is still room for improvement, particularly in terms of supporting filmmakers and creating a system that allows them to concentrate on production. It could be support systems such as mentorships and subsidies, or regulations such as ensuring and protecting a safe and sustainable working environment. If this system does not protect creators, sooner or later they will leave for other industries. This is going to be a big problem in the future as it affects the quality of movies being made. But hope is there. In recent years, there have been several moves to change the status quo. One of them is action4cinema, led by Hirokazu Kore-eda, an NPO aiming to establish a Japanese version of CNC equivalent to France. I hope that these movements will continue to create sustainable industries and nurture the soil where creators can grow. If we don’t want to see the land barren in the next five or ten years, it’s very important that we act now and try to do everything we can to create a system that supports our people.
Q: Are the things you learned in film school and your career in America reflected in SAKKA?
Yanagimoto: That’s an interesting question. Frankly, I think SAKKA reflects everything I’ve learned, studied, and observed since coming to America. But if I had to answer, I would talk about the importance of taking initiative and entrepreneurship. Of course, I am not saying that such ideas and philosophies do not exist in Japan, but I think they are more common and deeply rooted in the United States. A frontier spirit that paves the way to the unknown. The only way to see what you want to see is to create it yourself. It’s probably something I naturally absorbed here, and if I had lived in Japan, it would have been a completely different experience.
Q: In the future, do you have any hopes or things you want to do through SAKKA? Is there anything you would like to do differently?
Yanagimoto: At the root of SAKKA is the desire to raise our voices as cheerleaders for filmmakers. Therefore, for the movies we distribute, we create content for the director, such as commentary and interviews with the director. We really enjoy it and would like to do more of them, perhaps in a slightly different way. For example, we want to explore ways to screen movies directly in addition to digital distribution on our platform. I think the experience of watching a movie on the big screen in a theater is very important for both the audience and the filmmakers. We are also discussing the possibility of collaboration with various organizations, such as holding joint event screenings. It will be a full year since the service started in May of this year. Now that we have a solid foundation to grow from, we look forward to continuing our efforts and expanding to connect Japanese cinema with audiences around the world.
Check out more articles by Nobuhiro.
SAKKA’s official site, SAKKA
[ad_2]
Source link
