SKIP CITY INTERNATIONAL D-CINEMA FESTIVAL 2017
Discoveries in Digital Storytelling
Venue(s): SKIP CITYJuly 15 (Say), 2017 - July 23 (Sun), 2017
Language: Multilanguages, most with English subs
Official website: www.skipcity-dcf.jp/en/index.html
Theater website: www.skipcity-dcf.jp/en/location.html
Tariff: General: ¥800/single screening, ¥2,100/three screenings for most of films, visit the official site for details
Advance tickets: General: ¥600/single screening, ¥1,500/three screenings for most of films, and more — visit the official site for details.
Talk event: Please visit the official site for details
Title: SKIPシティ国際Dシネマ映画祭2017 (SKIP City Kokusai D-Cinema Eigasai 2017)
Each year since its first edition in 2004, the Skip City International D-Cinema Festival has increased its support for emerging Japanese filmmakers, as well as contributing to the development of filmmakers from around the world.
Its competition prizes have helped nurture the careers of such lauded directors as Niri Bilge Ceylan, Kazuya Shiraishi and Ryota Nakano, as well as raising their international profiles. The festival has also continued to focus attention on the latest in digital filmmaking tools and digital explorations, in keeping with the “D” in its name — perfectly positioning it to showcase today’s cutting-edge VR gains.
The 14th edition of the festival unspools over 9 days at Skip City’s 4K projector-equipped home in Kawaguchi, Saitama, and if you plan your trip carefully, you can maximize your visit by taking in several titles and/or events in one go.
Skip City’s 12-film Feature Competition, selected from 617 entries from 85 countries/regions, will highlight the work of three Japanese filmmakers. As in past years, the other two competition sections will focus exclusively on Japanese shorts and animation.
This year’s Opening Gala is the world premiere of Anima!, a film about a ballet dancer (Saika Hattori, in her debut) and a musician Yu Koyanagi (Tokyo Sonata). Directed by Takahiro Horie, whose Hurt was in the Feature Competition at last year’s festival, the film was produced by Skip City as part of its efforts to foster local talent.
Amina! (ANIMAを撃て！ Amina wo Ute!)
Dir：Takahiro Horie, 2017｜Japan
The three Japanese films competing for the Skip City Award are 3ft Ball & Souls by Yoshio Kato, Dream of Illumination by Thunder Sawada, and Noise by Yusaku Matsumoto. They couldn’t be more different in tone and subject matter.
3ft Ball & Souls (三尺魂 Sanjaku Tamashii)
Dir：Yoshio Kato, 2017｜Japan｜93 min｜Japanese
Kato’s strangely named work is a taut comedy-thriller with just four characters and essentially one set. The characters have gathered to commit suicide via a giant, spherical firework, but when it explodes — as it does repeatedly over the next 90 minutes — the characters find themselves back where they started… until they figure out how to escape the destructive loop.
Dream of Illumination is a gorgeously lensed black-and-white film about a father and daughter living in a small country town. The father is a real estate agent who has been selling land to foreigners, earning him a great deal of antipathy. The daughter is finishing high school, and after moving so many times for her father’s work, she’s determined to stay on here after graduation. An intriguing combination of character study and social-issues film, Dream is an elegy for the hollowing-out of Japan’s rural communities.
Dream of Illumination (ひかりのたび Hikari no Tabi)
Dir：Thunder Sawada, 2017｜Japan｜91 min
Noise is an ensemble drama with three main characters, all of them struggling — with varying degrees of failure — to move on from the childhood trauma of the real-life 2008 Akihabara massacre, in which seven people were slaughtered. One is an underground idol whose mother was killed, one is a high school girl who ran away from home that day, and one is a deliveryman whose daily frustrations may drive him down the same path as the slasher.
Noise (Noise)
Dir：Yusaku Matsumoto, 2017｜Japan｜124 min
The Short Film Competition showcases 12 Japanese films (chosen from over 150 submissions). After Hours, directed by Tatsuo Kobayashi, whose Country Girl and Gassoh were critically acclaimed, explores Shibuya; Hajime Izuki focuses on two young runaways in Minus by Minus; Siren stars Masahiko Tsugawa (Black Widow Business) in a story about an Arabian man and an elderly Japanese; and Mitokomon Z is a costume musical inspired by the famous Mito Komon drama.
After Hours (After Hours)
Dir：Tatsuo Kobayashi, 2016｜Japan｜15 min
The 10-film Animation Competition highlights a range of genres and subjects, running the gamut from stop-motion to bright Picasso-like geometrics to collages of old photographs, etchings and other materials. Each is a thoroughly unique vision of the world in under 30 minutes.
With VR so much in the news this past year, audiences will have the chance to discover why there’s so much excitement about the virtual reality revolution when Skip City presents, with free admission, six VR works from Japan and abroad (from July 16 to 18 only). Among the highlights is a dance sequence from the Opening Gala film in VR.
This year’s festival will also include a celebration of the ongoing success of three alumni, in the Filmmakers Making Waves sidebar, featuring non-subtitled screenings of six award-winning films from past editions. They include three features: Kazuya Shiraishi’s Lost Paradise in Tokyo, which won the Skip City Award in 2009; Ryota Nakano’s Capturing Dad, which received the Best Director and Skip City Award in 2012; Yuichiro Sakashita’s Kanagawa University of Fine Arts, Office of Film Research, which won the Special Jury Award with in 2013.
All three directors will appear after the screening of Lost Paradise in Tokyo on July 22. All other screenings are followed by Q&A sessions with the individual directors.
Lost Paradise in Tokyo
(ロストパラダイス・イン・トーキョー Lost Paradise in Tokyo)
Dir：Kazuya Shiraishi, 2009｜Japan｜115 min
Capturing Dad (チチを撮りに Chichi wo Tori ni)
Dir：Ryota Nakano, 2012｜Japan｜74 min
Kanagawa University of Fine Arts, Office of Film Research
(神奈川芸術大学映像学科研究室 Kanagawa Geijutsu Daigaku Eizo Gakka Kenkyushitsu)
Dir：Yuichiro Sakashita, 2013｜Japan｜70 min
There are also special screenings, again without English subtitles, of several of Japan’s most acclaimed films of 2016, including Sunao Katabuchi’s animated masterpiece In This Corner of the World and the multiaward-winning Her Love Boils Bathwater by Ryota Nakano.
Because all Skip City Competition films are screened with English subs, don’t miss the opportunity to catch films from many countries, including, for the first time, Armenia, Slovakia and Nepal. Among the highlights are The Citizen, an acclaimed Hungarian film on the refugee crisis; the Slovakian film Little Harbour, winner of the Crystal Bear in the Generation section at the Berlin Film Festival; Irreplaceable, starring François Cluzet, from France; and a documentary about a Chinese man whose career has been devoted to painting Van Gogh replicas.
Skip City
Each year since its first edition in 2004, the Skip City International D-Cinema Festival has increased its support for emerging Japanese filmmakers, as well as contributing to the development of filmmakers from around the world.
Its competition prizes have helped nurture the careers of such lauded directors as Niri Bilge Ceylan, Kazuya Shiraishi and Ryota Nakano, as well as raising their international profiles. The festival has also continued to focus attention on the latest in digital filmmaking tools and digital explorations, in keeping with the “D” in its name — perfectly positioning it to showcase today’s cutting-edge VR gains.
The 14th edition of the festival unspools over 9 days at Skip City’s 4K projector-equipped home in Kawaguchi, Saitama, and if you plan your trip carefully, you can maximize your visit by taking in several titles and/or events in one go.
Skip City’s 12-film Feature Competition, selected from 617 entries from 85 countries/regions, will highlight the work of three Japanese filmmakers. As in past years, the other two competition sections will focus exclusively on Japanese shorts and animation.
This year’s Opening Gala is the world premiere of Anima!, a film about a ballet dancer (Saika Hattori, in her debut) and a musician Yu Koyanagi (Tokyo Sonata). Directed by Takahiro Horie, whose Hurt was in the Feature Competition at last year’s festival, the film was produced by Skip City as part of its efforts to foster local talent.
Amina! (ANIMAを撃て！ Amina wo Ute!)
Dir：Takahiro Horie, 2017｜Japan
The three Japanese films competing for the Skip City Award are 3ft Ball & Souls by Yoshio Kato, Dream of Illumination by Thunder Sawada, and Noise by Yusaku Matsumoto. They couldn’t be more different in tone and subject matter.
3ft Ball & Souls (三尺魂 Sanjaku Tamashii)
Dir：Yoshio Kato, 2017｜Japan｜93 min｜Japanese
Kato’s strangely named work is a taut comedy-thriller with just four characters and essentially one set. The characters have gathered to commit suicide via a giant, spherical firework, but when it explodes — as it does repeatedly over the next 90 minutes — the characters find themselves back where they started… until they figure out how to escape the destructive loop.
Dream of Illumination is a gorgeously lensed black-and-white film about a father and daughter living in a small country town. The father is a real estate agent who has been selling land to foreigners, earning him a great deal of antipathy. The daughter is finishing high school, and after moving so many times for her father’s work, she’s determined to stay on here after graduation. An intriguing combination of character study and social-issues film, Dream is an elegy for the hollowing-out of Japan’s rural communities.
Dream of Illumination (ひかりのたび Hikari no Tabi)
Dir：Thunder Sawada, 2017｜Japan｜91 min
Noise is an ensemble drama with three main characters, all of them struggling — with varying degrees of failure — to move on from the childhood trauma of the real-life 2008 Akihabara massacre, in which seven people were slaughtered. One is an underground idol whose mother was killed, one is a high school girl who ran away from home that day, and one is a deliveryman whose daily frustrations may drive him down the same path as the slasher.
Noise (Noise)
Dir：Yusaku Matsumoto, 2017｜Japan｜124 min
The Short Film Competition showcases 12 Japanese films (chosen from over 150 submissions). After Hours, directed by Tatsuo Kobayashi, whose Country Girl and Gassoh were critically acclaimed, explores Shibuya; Hajime Izuki focuses on two young runaways in Minus by Minus; Siren stars Masahiko Tsugawa (Black Widow Business) in a story about an Arabian man and an elderly Japanese; and Mitokomon Z is a costume musical inspired by the famous Mito Komon drama.
After Hours (After Hours)
Dir：Tatsuo Kobayashi, 2016｜Japan｜15 min
The 10-film Animation Competition highlights a range of genres and subjects, running the gamut from stop-motion to bright Picasso-like geometrics to collages of old photographs, etchings and other materials. Each is a thoroughly unique vision of the world in under 30 minutes.
With VR so much in the news this past year, audiences will have the chance to discover why there’s so much excitement about the virtual reality revolution when Skip City presents, with free admission, six VR works from Japan and abroad (from July 16 to 18 only). Among the highlights is a dance sequence from the Opening Gala film in VR.
This year’s festival will also include a celebration of the ongoing success of three alumni, in the Filmmakers Making Waves sidebar, featuring non-subtitled screenings of six award-winning films from past editions. They include three features: Kazuya Shiraishi’s Lost Paradise in Tokyo, which won the Skip City Award in 2009; Ryota Nakano’s Capturing Dad, which received the Best Director and Skip City Award in 2012; Yuichiro Sakashita’s Kanagawa University of Fine Arts, Office of Film Research, which won the Special Jury Award with in 2013.
All three directors will appear after the screening of Lost Paradise in Tokyo on July 22. All other screenings are followed by Q&A sessions with the individual directors.
Lost Paradise in Tokyo
(ロストパラダイス・イン・トーキョー Lost Paradise in Tokyo)
Dir：Kazuya Shiraishi, 2009｜Japan｜115 min
Capturing Dad (チチを撮りに Chichi wo Tori ni)
Dir：Ryota Nakano, 2012｜Japan｜74 min
Kanagawa University of Fine Arts, Office of Film Research
(神奈川芸術大学映像学科研究室 Kanagawa Geijutsu Daigaku Eizo Gakka Kenkyushitsu)
Dir：Yuichiro Sakashita, 2013｜Japan｜70 min
There are also special screenings, again without English subtitles, of several of Japan’s most acclaimed films of 2016, including Sunao Katabuchi’s animated masterpiece In This Corner of the World and the multiaward-winning Her Love Boils Bathwater by Ryota Nakano.
Because all Skip City Competition films are screened with English subs, don’t miss the opportunity to catch films from many countries, including, for the first time, Armenia, Slovakia and Nepal. Among the highlights are The Citizen, an acclaimed Hungarian film on the refugee crisis; the Slovakian film Little Harbour, winner of the Crystal Bear in the Generation section at the Berlin Film Festival; Irreplaceable, starring François Cluzet, from France; and a documentary about a Chinese man whose career has been devoted to painting Van Gogh replicas.
Skip City
Please be sure to check with the theater before going.