by Andrew Thomas

With a 25% reduction in budget, caused in part by the continuing economic recession in Japan, and a re-structuring of the competition categories, the 11th Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) was a subdued event in comparison to previous years. There was however the usual diverse range of screenings including an homage to Akira Kurosawa, showing all of the legendary directors work, a British Film Week of current releases and past classics, and the annual program dedicated to recent international films from women producers and directors.

The self-declared aim of the festival is to promote the work of new directors, and the competition awards reflected that. The Grand Prix went to Open Your Eyes, a superb psychological thriller by the talented 27-year-old Spanish director Alejandro Amenabar. The film has a complex intriguing structure, shifting between dream sequences and reality, as the causes of Cesar's alienation and torment after suffering serious facial disfigurement in a car crash, are gradually revealed. The script has apparently been optioned as a future vehicle for Tom Cruise, but Amenabar showed little interest in working on a US studio-produced version, announcing that his next project would be an atmospheric gore-free horror film.

Best director award went to Guy Ritchie for the stylish London gangster movie Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, a big hit at the British box office and sure to be popular in Tokyo, where recent movies from the UK have been prevalent in the past year. The revitalization of British Film in the 90's was the subject of a symposium to find out the specific conditions in the industry that sparked the recent successes, and to examine the educational and funding structures. The hope being that the lessons learned from this discussion would be important to the industry in Japan, to develop a new generation of talent and inspire a similar revival in fortunes internationally.

Performances by young future stars were also recognized, with Brad Renfro getting the Best Actor award for his role as the twisted Todd in Bryan Singer's Apt Pupil, and Maki Miyamoto floating onto the stage in full kimono to collect her award for Best Actress as the apprentice geisha in Omocha by veteran Japanese director Kenji Fukasaku.

The award for Best Artistic Contribution was shared by Francois Girard for The Red Violin and Chris Eyre for Smoke Signals, with the Special Jury Prize awarded to Garin Nugroho's Leaf on a Pillow, a tragic account of the lives of three homeless Indonesian street kids and their adopted mother. Shot in the market streets of Yogyakarta, the film was based on research for a documentary Nugroho had completed in 1995, and features the children he had originally met in the cast.

In the award category specifically for directors who've made three features or less, the Gold Prize, and the significant sum of $80,000, went to a regular on the international film festival circuit, Spring In My Hometown by Korean director Lee Kwang-mo. The Silver Prize ($40,000) went to Kasaba, a no-budget black and white film, depicting the lives and thoughts of different generations of a family in rural Turkey, made virtually single-handedly by director Nuri Bilge Ceylan.

With the focus upon on international films, the festival has been criticized for doing little to support independent filmmakers in Japan. Of course most of the domestic films within the festival are there through the influence of the major studios and distributors, with existing initiatives to support the development of new productions. Though this seems to have yielded very little in terms of quality films that can have an impact internationally. Fortunately in new directors like Hirokazu Koreeda, there is proof that significant films are being made that can improve the opportunities and opinion of contemporary Japanese film overseas. Koreeda's latest film After Life is a moving and thought-provoking film dealing with the world beyond death and the search for the defining memory of an individual's existence.

Overall the main impression was that TIFF, like Japan itself, is within a period of transition. It needs a more radical shake-up in the format to develop its reputation as one of the best festivals in Asia, and to play a greater role in raising the standards of contemporary Japanese cinema, and enhance its international profile.