I was talking about Toyoda last week if you remember. I actually went to his”live cinema” performance last wednesday.
Anyway, Toyoda have been arrested for drug posession this morning. His next movie, Kuchu Teien, will have its october scheduled release postponed.
The original news article in japanese can be found here.
And heres’s translation of the same article by Jason Gray of the kine japan mailing list from which i got the news :

“Kyoko Koizumi Shocked! Director Toshiaki Toyoda Arrested
for Drugs - ‘Kuchu Teien’ Release Postponed”

Film director Toshiaki Toyoda (36) was arrested for
possession of a controlled substance on August 25th. Five
packets (approximately 3.9 grams) of a stimulant were
found at Toyoda’s home in Komae City, Tokyo. “It was for
personal use,” stated Toyoda. The young talent directed
the movie “Kuchu Teien”, slated to open in theaters this
October. The film’s cast and crew, including star Kyoko
Koizumi, who enjoyed a premiere of the film in April,
could not hide their shock at the news and the possibility
of the film’s release being delayed.

—–

Koizumi goes on to speak about her great surprise at the
news, as there was no indication during filming of a
change in Toyoda’s behaviour.

Looks like japan is going to join france and the US as animation pioneer countries. According to this article a recent found would date the first japanese animation picture in 1907.
Jasper Sharp of midnight eye fame is skeptical about it as stated in this post from the kinema club maling list :

“…J. Stuart Blackton’s incredibly
primitive looking Humorous Phases of a Funny Face, a series of chalk
drawings, was only made in 1906…”
“This seems to be akin to
saying that Japan invented animation. I, for one, am not convinced at all
by this discovery.”

Sharp has written a very good paper on japanese animation history for midnight eye. You can read it here.

So Mamoru Oshii did an instalation for the world expo which is currently held in Aichi prefecture in Japan. Unfortunately it’s insanely hot and expensive and full of people queuing to see everything so i didn’t get there yet.
One of the thing that i wanted to see was Oshii’s instalation, fortunately they’re (don’t ask) releasing it in dvd and the guys at stauffen have gotten hold of one and put screenshots on their site.
Get a looky at the pretty pictures here.

Shiroh is a rock musical. It looks like filmed theater with some additional shots to justify the movie version. Now i didn’t really get what Shiroh was all about but looking at the trailer, it seems to be a christian, visual-rock opera.
Wait a second, i’d like to write that once more, a christian visual-rock opera. That’s the thing with fads in Japan they never really go away and the visual rock fad is still there lurking in the dark alleys of Tokyo waiting to jump on you again.
The movie is being released in (thank god) only one theater in Tokyo (and probably japan), namely cine quinto.
It’s a limited release since the dvd is going out in October. So it’s not really a straight to dvd release, but don’t be fooled, it’s a straight to dvd movie indeed.
And here’s the official site and the trailer.

The Locarno film festival has just awarde two japanese movies. Nobuhiro Suwa’s Un couple parfait got the Special Jury Price, Watai Takeharu’’s Little Bird got the Human Rights Award.
Un couple parfait is a drama shot in France, Little Bird is a documentary about the Irak war.

Japanese filmmaker Teruo Ishii has died of lung cancer this morning. He directed no less than 88 movies, mostly B flicks. His last movie, Blind Beast vs. Dwarf (Môjuu tai Issunbôshi), an adaptation of a Rampo Edogawa’s novel, was released in 2001.

Adachi Masao is looking for funds to finance his next movie 13th Months. The japanese director is notably famous for his commitment to the Palestinian revolution. He has been living (and fightning ?) in the middle east since the 70’s until he was arrested in Lebanon and deported to Japan in 1997.
To produce his next movie he has set up a billingual website where you can ask to participate in the project as a staff or a benefactor.
And if you think it’s a boring arty flick go and read the story here. Unexploded nuclear war heads, silver haired computer nerds and trips to the Babel tower, no less.
Adachi’s filmo from imdb.
via Kinejapan

The Pia Film Festival (PFF) is a tokyo based event dedicated to support young filmakers from all over the world.
It will be held in Tokyo between the 9th and the 15th of July, so yes right now. If you want to submit your film for the next one, you should do it between October and December 2005.
But you should probably go and check this site by yourself.
The PFF Scholarship is part od the festival and is used to finance movies. It has participated in producing 15 movies since 1984.
Good luck.

Let’s say we meet in a dark alley and from the get go you tell me ” I love japanese cinema and elephants”. A few minutes earlier i would have thought “who’s that crazy bum ?” and run away from you as fast as i possibly can.
But now i would reply in a proud voice “Go see Shining boy and Little Randy you freak !”.
Shining boy and Little Randy (Hoshi ni natta shounen) is the true story of Sakamoto Tetsumu who at an early age went to Thailand to learn the trade of elephant trainer. He dies in Japan while trying to build an elephant park. That’s it.
The big promotion point here is that Shining boy and Little Randy is the next movie of Yagira Yuya, the kid who won best interpretation at the cannes film festival last year for his performance in Kore-eda’s Nobody Knows (daremo shiranai).
And of course there’s an official site and two trailers, one here, the other one should be there.

Actor-singer Hagiwara Kenichi has just been found guilty of extortion and condemned to one year and six months, suspended for three years. He threatened the producers of the movie Toko no ki after being fired from it for causing troubles on the set.
Hagiwara has acted in Kagemusha and Itsuka giragirasuruhi (known as Triple Cross in the west) amongst other things.
Thanks for the kine japan mailing list and Aaron Gerrow for the info.