Tokyo Film Festival Is Re-Discovering a Discovery Role, Says Artistic Director Ichiyama Shozo

variety.com:

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief With strong accents on mainland Chinese directors, Japan’s next generation of filmmaking talent and a new women’s empowerment section, this week’s Tokyo International Film Festival can lay reasonable claim to being a discovery festival – as well as one catering to a large public in the Japanese capital. “We have a strong Chinese-language presence in the competition section, three mid-career Japanese directors in competition, a really super World Focus section and a new Women’s section,” Ichiyama Shozo, the festival’s programming director, told Variety.

And in the home of anime, the festival’s animation section has this year expanded to encompass overseas-made features. The vagaries of timing, the complexities of the festival circuit and Tokyo’s own regulations, which require premieres in the key competition section, can lead to a lineup that hews in a different direction from other major festivals.

Whereas Venice this year had many high-profile English-language films, Tokyo has none in competition. (Titles picked up from Venice or Cannes must find berths in the sidebars.) Similarly, while the recent Busan festival, somewhat controversially, showcased multiple films and series from the Netflix streaming giant, Tokyo has none of these either.

Rather, Tokyo has ridden its luck and Ichiyama’s personal connections in China, where he is a regular production partner of Jia Zhangke, to become a significant showcase for the ever-fragile independent sector in China. “Some of the Chinese films only passed [Chinese] censorship shortly before our press conference, so maybe they were not submitted to Venice,” Ichiyama said.