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07.06.2022 - 20:29 / variety.com
Mark Schilling Japan CorrespondentNaomi Kawase, Japan’s best-known female film director, has been accused of bullying her company staff and assaulting a member of her film crew.In late April, Bunshun Online, the website of a leading weekly tabloid, published an interview with a former male staffer of Kawase’s production company Kumie. He stated that Kawase had punched him in the face in the company office in October of 2015.
Kawase allegedly continued her assault against the staffer, leaving him facially bruised, as other staff members fled the scene. He quit the company that day.On April 28, Kawase and the anonymous staffer issued a joint statement on Kumie’s site, saying that “The parties involved have already reached a resolution regarding the incident.” Earlier, a vernacular magazine reported that, in 2019, while on the set of her film “True Mothers,” Kawase kicked a male assistant cameraman, after he touched her while she was looking through the camera.
Kawase did not publicly respond to this allegation.The allegations may have played a significant part in sinking the box office debut of the first element of Kawase’s two-part Olympic documentary “Official Film of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games Side A.”Opening nationwide on June 3, “Side A” limped to No. 13 in the Eiga.com weekend box office rankings, far behind No.
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new media company, Hana Kuma. The sporting superstar, who was born in Japan, told the New York Times Tuesday that hana kuma means “flower bear” in Japanese — but Twitter users quickly noted it has a far more explicit meaning in Swahili, where it translates to “woman without a vagina.”The lost-in-translation controversy began trending on Twitter in multiple African countries, with dozens of users urging Osaka, 24, to change the name of the company, which she founded in partnership with NBA legend LeBron James, 37. “Naomi Osaka has partnered with LeBron James to start a media company called Hana Kuma.
Noma Sets Crypto Feature Film Trio
Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefAmuse Group USA, part of Japan’s Amuse Entertainment conglomerate, is to unveil a slate of its latest projects intended for North American investment, adaptation, remake or coproduction. The new IP will be pitched on Thursday at the second edition of A-Japan, an event that jointly operated by Amuse USA and the Visual Industry Promotion Organization, a non-profit agency intended to help the Japanese content industry become globally competitive.The edition will be held online only and kick off at 11 am PDT.
Jack Antonoff hosted a SuperJam, playing a guest-filled set of songs released in his birth year of 1984.During the set, the Bleachers man was joined by a host of guest vocalists including Carly Rae Jepsen, CHVRCHES‘ Lauren Mayberry, Claud, Japanese Breakfast and more.Kicking off with a cover of Van Halen‘s ‘Jump’ with Claud, Mayberry covered a pair of Madonna songs with Antonoff before covers from the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Prince, The Smiths and more were rolled out.See the full setlist and footage below.6.18.22 @bonnaroo superjam. honor to host pic.twitter.com/luTgDCjX9y— jackantonoff (@jackantonoff) June 19, 2022Oh man, oh man, oh man.
Katherine Tulich Lukas Dhont’s “Close,” which won the Grand Prix in Cannes last month, picked up the Sydney Film Prize, the top prize at the Sydney Film Festival, on Sunday evening.Accepting the award via video message Dhont said: “It’s a film that comes from our hearts, that we worked on for a lot of years with many people.”The international jury consisted of Australian actor David Wenham, Australian director Jennifer Peedom, writer-director-producer Mostofa Sarwar Farooki (Bangladesh), Berlin Golden Bear winner Semih Kaplanoglu (Turkey), and the executive director of the Kawakita Memorial Film Institute in Tokyo, Yuka Sakano (Japan). Twelve titles in the official competition included Carla Simon’s “Alcarras”, Hlynur Palmason’s “Godland”, Colm Bairead’s “The Quiet Girl” and Del Kathryn Barton’s “Blaze.” The winner is awarded AUD$60,000 ($41,600).
Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorJapanese Breakfast, Wet Leg and Madlib were among the top winners at the Libera Awards on Thursday night, the American Association of Independent Music’s annual awards ceremony.The event returned in a hybrid setting, with people from the indie community gathering at New York’s Webster Hall to receive awards, catch a DJ set from Madlib (featuring a freestyle from Talib Kweli) and live sets from Sammy Rae & the Friends and others, while concurrently a livestream of performances from Japanese Breakfast, Brittany Howard, Jason Isbell, Helado Negro and Cautious Clay was played in a separate room at the venue. Also performing live at the event were Tré Burt, Canadian Brass and Adrian Daniel.
Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefWith a mission to bring Japanese independent cinema to a world audience, todoiF launched Friday as a new specialist streaming platform.The service is privately backed and operated by Kawano Koichi, a San Francisco State University alumnus who worked as a talent agent in Japan for two decades, before becoming involved between 2019-21 in the start-up of another Japanese specialty streamer Cinema Discoveries.The new venture will start very small, possibly as few as eight carefully-curated titles, and make them available on a transactional-VOD only basis. New titles will be uploaded monthly and will typically be available for a year before rotating off the service.
Naman Ramachandran Shailaja Padindala’s Kannada-language film “Naanu Ladies” won best narrative feature and Pedro Peira’s English and Spanish-language film “LA QueenCianera” best documentary feature at the 2022 Kashish LGBTQ+ film festival in Mumbai.Gujarati-language shorts “Muhafiz” by Pradipta Ray and “Dal Bhat” by Nemil Shah” won best Indian narrative short and the Riyad Wadia Award for best emerging Indian filmmaker respectively. “Muhafiz” also won best screenplay for Ray and Ashutosh Pathak.Padindala said: “ ‘Naanu Ladies’ is a film attempting to identify cis-het culture [as it] weaves itself into the queerness of everyday life.
Mark Schilling Japan CorrespondentBack in Japan after his Korean-language drama “Broker” won two prizes at this year’s Cannes festival, Kore-eda Hirokazu appeared as a press event in Tokyo on Tuesday to announce the launch of a group of industry professionals who aim for structural reform of the Japanese film industry.The group calls itself the “Association for the Establishment of a Japanese Version of CNC.” The reference is to France’s government-backed oversight body, the Centre National du Cinema et de l’Image Animee. Kore-eda noted the low incomes and long working hours of freelance filmmakers and emphasized the need for reform.
Justin Lin recently made headlines for stepping away from “Fast X,” while already in production. While the reasons behind his unexpected departure from the “Fast & Furious” franchise have been discussed to death, the filmmaker has already lined up his next big project.
Justin Lin has found his next project.
Crying in H Mart: A Memoir is now being adapted into a feature film, and just a few weeks ago Time recognized her as a rising star by adding her to its annual list the Time 100 Next.Last year also saw the band release its third proper studio album, Jubilee, which felt like a debut all over again. Zauner does not entirely throw out her original playbook, and builds on her vocal prowess and knack for telling a good story.But Jubilee is far more dramatic and unrestrained than we might ever have expected, delivering nicely on Zauner’s goal to go “all out” on her third album, taking particular inspiration from Icelandic pop star Björk and her own third album, Homogenic.On Wednesday, Japanese Breakfast drops by Wolf Trap for an inspired double-bill pairing with Belle and Sebastian, a seven-piece, wistful-pop act, dubbed “Scottish sovereigns of indie pop” by Rolling Stone.They’re touring in support of an 11th studio album, A Bit of Previous, released last month, 26 years after their debut.Wednesday, June 15, starting at 7 p.m.
Wilson Chapman editorJustin Lin is attached to direct an upcoming film adaptation of the popular manga “One Punch Man.”Lin will direct the film based on a script from “Venom” and “Jumanji: The Next Level” screenwriters Scott Rosenberg and Jeff Pinkner. Sony Pictures is backing the film, and Lin will produce alongside Avi and Ari Arad of Arad Productions.“One Punch Man” will be Lin’s first project following the announcement this April that he exited directing “Fast X,” the latest film in the “Fast and Furious” franchise.
Joe Otterson TV ReporterFX is developing a series based on the life of Hiroaki “Rocky” Aoki, best known as the founder of the Benihana restaurant chain, Variety has learned exclusively from sources.The series is currently titled “American Hiro” and is based in part on the book “Making It in America: The Life and Times of Rocky Aoki” by Jack McCallum.Representatives for FX and 20th Television declined to comment.The series will delve into Aoki’s colorful life as a mogul and businessman, from founding Benihana to being an Olympic wrestler, professional speed boat racer, hot air balloonist, and nightclub impresario. It will also examine his complicated relationship with his family and his attempts to reconcile his Japanese heritage with his American dreams. Jonathan Abrams created the series and will serve as an executive producer.
As part of Geeked Week, Netflix announced the new movie Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead, based on the Haro Aso Japanese manga series and dropped the following photo above.
Netflix on Tuesday announced a new film based on the popular Japanese manga series “Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead,” a zombie movie and horror comedy that will soon premiere worldwide on Netflix. “Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead” was unveiled as part of Netflix’s Geeked Week presentations continuing Tuesday, and the film is inspired by the manga series written by Haro Aso and illustrated by Kotaro Takata of the same name.
Japanese Breakfast recently joined New York chiptune-based rockers Anamanaguchi to perform a cover of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World song ‘Black Sheep’.The original version of the song was written by Metric for the 2010 film adaptation of Scott Pilgrim Vs.
Spanish Filmin Buys Lars Von Trier’s ‘The Kingdom’ Trilogy
Broker and Decision to Leave have made history at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, marking the first time two Korean works have won at the same ceremony.The upcoming Korean films Broker and Decision To Leave have both taken home one award each at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, marking the first time two Korean films have won an award at the festival in the same year.South Korean actor Song Kang-ho, who rose to international prominence in Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite in 2019, took home the Best Actor award for his role in Broker, which was directed by Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda. This makes Song the second Korean, after Jeon Do-yeon for 2007’s Secret Sunshine to win the award, and the first Korean male actor to do so.During his acceptance speech, the 55-year-old actor thanked director Hirokazu Kore-eda, along with his Broker co-stars Gang Dong-won, IU, Lee Joo-young and Bae Doo-na.