In an interaction with media-persons here today during the 44th International Film Festival of India (IFFI), eminent Japanese film-makers discussed the content and craft of their films. As Japan is the country of focus in the 44th International Film Festival of India (IFFI), many film personalities like Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Keiichi Hara, Sang-il Lee and Takashi Nishimura were present on the occasion.

 Kiyoshi Kurosawa, eminent director of films like Tokyo Sonata (2008) has directed film ‘Real’ a sci-fi horror mix depicting the variety of genre in the Japanese films. Kurosawa himself admitted that a new line of Japanese film makers are trying to bring variety in Japanese films on the line of Indian films.

  Sang-il Lee widely known for Hula Girls (2006) has directed a drama film ‘Unforgiven’, was screened at IFFI.Attending IFFI for the first time, Lee mentioned that Indian films and film stars like Rajnikanth and Amitabh Bachchan are very popular in Japan.

   Keiichi Hara, a well-known name for giving a leap to the animation filmmaking with TV series like Doraemon and Shin Chan first time directed a drama ‘Dawn of a Filmmaker’. The film is a biopic of legendary Japanese filmmaker Kinoshita Keisuke.

Answering  the questions Japanese filmmakers said that the new environment for filmmaking in Japan is very encouraging. They admitted that lot of good films like Tokyo Sonata by Kiyoshi Kurosawa himself are being made  but still remain unnoticed due to lack of media exposure. There are  around 400-500 annual releases adding variety of genre to the art of filmmaking.

Replying  to a question that whether Japanese directors are reworking on the classical works of the legendary directors like Kinoshita Keisuke, Ozu, Akira Kurosawa and Kenji Mizoguchi, Mr.Kiyoshi Kurosawa said that there have been many TV dramas and short documentary films on their works.

Denying the fact that most of Japanese films highlight violence Sang-il Lee said that on the contrary most Japanese films propagate peace and happiness.

Kurosawa admitted that the eminent Indian filmmakers Satyajit Ray and GuruDatt are popular among the Japanese filmmakers. Similarly films like ‘3 Idiots’ have been liked very much by the Japanese audience.

Japanese filmmakers praised the 44th International Film Festival of India saying that it’s a wide platform for the filmmakers to have cross cultural interaction and share art and ideas of filmmaking.

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UM/NSK/AK/DB 
(Release ID: 100814)