FIAPF’s decision to make A-list status official, with Tokyo among the 17 festivals named, is unlikely to change much about the event, according to the filmmaker leading its competition jury. Australian filmmaker Rolf de Heer, the director of “Bad Boy Bubby” and “Ten Canoes,” was asked at the 39th Tokyo International Film Festival’s jury press conference on Tuesday whether the classification mattered or was a redundant system. Tokyo was effectively an A festival.
And so in that sense, I don’t think it makes a lot of difference,” de Heer said. He allowed that the classification seems to be carrying more weight in determining the quality of films a festival can secure. In March, FIAPF, the international federation of film producers’ associations, replaced its four-category accreditation system with a single list and designated 17 festivals as A-list, a term the industry had long used informally.
They include Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Toronto, Busan, Shanghai, Cairo and Tokyo. Busan and Toronto made the list for the first time. Korean producer Oh Jungwan, founder of Bom Film Productions (“The Foul King,” “A Tale of Two Sisters,” “A Bittersweet Life”), said de Heer’s answer covered it and that she was “not a film festival person.” “So I don’t know what is A-list or not.
So maybe probably A-list means good, so but as an audience, we’re not going to the festival because of their A-list or not. We just go to watch film and enjoy the feeling, the festival feeling,” Oh said. Pressed by the journalist, who had hoped someone would call out a system that ranks some festivals above others, de Heer offered a final word: “It matters a great deal to some people, and not at all to others.
And that is as it should be.” The rest of the jury, Japanese actor Watanabe Makiko (“M/Other,” “Love Exposure,” “Tokyo Vice”), New York- and Tokyo-based producer Alex Lo of Cinema Inutile, whose credits include Jim Jarmusch’s Venice Golden Lion winner “Father Mother Sister Brother,” and Tokyo-based colorist Yov Moor (“The Taste of Things,” “Grand Tour”), did not weigh in on the question. The five-member panel will choose the Tokyo Grand Prix from 15 competition titles. The festival runs through Nov. 4.
De Heer was also asked about prospects for Australia-Japan co-productions. Europe is very good at doing co-productions only on a financial basis, really. Australia is not so good at that,” he said.
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