The Tokyo International Film Festival is having something of an identity crisis. This year saw the arrival of Yasushi Shiina as the festival’s Director General. He acknowledged that the festival faced a list of problems. Chief amongst them is that despite it being the 26th year of the event, it hardly registers a blip on the overcrowded film festival calendar.
“What I think is my job is that we tell the world that the Tokyo Film Festival exists in Japan and we let the world know that,” Shiina said. “We don’t want to be isolated.”
He cited a number of problems that the festival faces if it is to achieve this goal. One was the fact that Tokyo surfaces at the end of October. That’s after Venice, Toronto and Busan, cities with more established film festivals that take the cream of the world premiers.
The opening night film in Tokyo was Captain Phillips. Tom Hanks bowled into town. For a Japanese audience it was great, but given the “international” ambitions of Tokyo, it did seem to be a bit of an after party with Hanks having already introduced the film as the opening night gala in both New York and London. Being third in line is not going to inspire the international press corps.
Shiina readily admits, “October is a bad month.” But then posits that with so many international festivals on the calendar there is not really a good month to move to.
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