Family relationships run through the Asian films that Tokyo International Film Festival programmer Ishizaka Kenji has picked for this year’s edition. Ishizaka has programmed Asian cinema at the festival since 2007, when most submissions were still shot on film. Digital took over within a few years.
His selection process moved from 35mm prints and VHS tapes to DVDs, and later to streaming links and downloadable screeners. The shift also changed what films looked like. Freed from the need to reload film, Asian directors leaned into long running times built on unbroken takes, and so-called slow cinema spread across the region.
Two of its leading auteurs took top prizes at major European festivals in the 2010s: Thailand’s Apichatpong Weerasethakul won the Palme d’Or at Cannes for “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives,” and the Philippines’ Lav Diaz won Venice’s Golden Lion for “The Woman Who Left.” Ishizaka also oversees Asian Future, the festival’s competition for young Asian filmmakers. Its 10 titles this year include Katski Flores’ “Edjop” from the Philippines, Kim Hyun-min’s “On the Heights” from South Korea and Chezhiyan’s “The Paper Flower” from India. Azamat Shargyn’s “Shyrmauyq” from Kazakhstan, Ariani Darmawan’s “Jani Be Good” from Indonesia and Kujiraoka Hironori’s “Saravah” from Japan are also in the running.
The line between studio fare and independent film has blurred considerably, he says. Other industries in the region are seeing similar crossover. If the 2010s belonged to Southeast Asian cinema, the story of the 2020s is still being written.
For now, Ishizaka singles out Taiwan and South Korea for the strength of their public funding and institutional backing. Japan’s network of independent arthouse venues, known locally as mini-theaters, is supported by experienced distributors of international cinema. Although Asian Future has no nonfiction titles this year, he sees a dramatic change in war documentaries from across Asia in the last five years.
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