All posts tagged: Tokyo International Film Festival

Festival-season-Part-2-Feature-Image

2022 Festival Season: Latter Half

Published by Ben Dimagmaliw

The first half of the festival season will often set trends (see the first part published on the blog site). Some of the movies featured at festivals early in the year will filter their way through various events held in the second half. Meanwhile, Japanese filmmakers will also be seeking entry into the late year festivals which are also searching to premiere yet undiscovered works, particularly many key domestic events as well as ones throughout Asia. There was a distinct celebratory air at many of the festivals which were putting their best foot forward toward a return to pre-COVID pageantry.

Story Feature Image

2020 Belated News

Published by Ben Dimagmaliw

2020 has been a year for the books. Aside from the political and social elephants in the room, this year will go down in memory as completely unique, full of unexpected developments which have not been experienced in the past. As this pertains to Indievisual, the impact of the pandemic were twofold. First, the outset of COVID-19 put a stop to the entertainment industry, from film festivals to theatrical releases. With productions as well grinding to a halt, the very lifeblood of Indievisual also came to a standstill. Second, the circumstances removed the need for translation services causing –much like the rest of the world at the time–substantial professional insecurity. In mid-April, the Japan central government itself declared a state of emergency in lieu of a lockdown which it lacked the authority to impose as per its constitution. Anxiety deepened over whether the Japanese film industry would recover, and accordingly whether there would be any translation work for the remainder of the year. Then an odd thing happened. A month later, the state of emergency …

Eye-On-The-Hungry-Lion

The Hungry Lion

Published by Ben Dimagmaliw

The internet was once hailed as the “information super highway”; information would travel across vast distances at incredible speeds allowing people to have more access to more types of information than they ever had before. Today, however, the internet more closely resembles a battleground than a highway, with information becoming the barbs and arrows of the media and its consumers. It is becoming more difficult to differentiate fact from fiction. “Fake News” has probably come to be the defining phrase of 2017 and perhaps beyond. Director Ogata Takaomi was aware of the way the mass media was beginning to trade away its obligation to provide objective information for the sake of profitability and audience size long ago. His latest movie, The Hungry Lion throws into relief how the proliferation of convenient means to record and disseminate information across the vastness of the internet is not only turning us into prey, but potential predators as well thanks to a mass media that is packaging information for ready consumption by a hungry public. One morning, 18-year-old Hitomi’s …