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In the first of Sapporo's special programs, several directors based in Sapporo introduced themselves and their latest works.
Among the films that screened were three from the Mississippi Connection's "Masterpieces," which included Eiji Shimada's
"Sorrow Bottle," Araki Masahito's "Tenjo Tenka Bakuretsu Road" and Keisuke Onodera's "dive." The screening also featured
Singapore director Royston Tan's Hock Hiap Leong."
Three films were selected from the Mississippi Connection's fourteen 'Masterpieces.' If you're dying to know, the Mississippi
Connection is a group of four filmmakers, who banded together and decided to make films. One of its members, Yuji Sekihara,
explains: "Four of us got together and named our group the Mississippi Connection. And we decided we're going to make films
together. We started making films from just this past April, and we have about 200 or so items we'd like to do, and so,
we're just going to make a lot of projects."
After screening his short, "hands" in last year's festival, Shimada said he decided he was going to make a living by making films.
And just around the time he made that decision, a division of the economics ministry was set up to support young filmmakers with
interesting creative projects. In order to get the necessary support, Shimada said he created the Max Core Room Project. "It's
become really easy to make films with digital videos. And we (at the Max Core Room Project) thought that there was a need to create
a place where those new video projects could be discovered, a place in addition to the internet."
His own film, "Sorrow Bottle," has only one line of dialogue and is set in the middle of a silo in field, against the snow-white
background of Hokkaido. "When I first went to the location where this film is shot, I thought it had an incredibly mysterious feel
to it. I was inspired to make a story out of it."
Masahito Araki talked about his film, "Tenjo Tenka Bakuretsu Road" (literally, "Heaven and Hell's Explosive Road"). "It's really
about how young people go through so much to figure out their own style, their own identities. It's quite different from my
previous work, but I think equally expressive of my own personality. I wrote this as 'Part One,' of a sort of drama series.
The following episodes will appear on the Max Core Room Project website. I'm about to start the second part."
Keisuke Onodera had a similar experience to Araki when he made his 'dive,' a horror-suspense film that is a complete contrast to
his previous heart-warming film. "This film has no dialogue, because I wanted to make it for viewing on the web. In order for
people from all over the world to watch it and understand it, I deliberately didn't put any dialogue into it."
Finally, a non-Sapporo filmmaker, Royston Tan, of Singapore, joined the discussion and talked about his film, "Hock Hiap Leong,"
which takes place in an old coffee shop. "Ever since I was very young, I would often go to this coffee shop, which was known in
Singapore as one of the oldest coffee shops around. It's now closed down, but I wanted to make a story about it when it was open,
" he explains. He loved this particular coffee shop because it was a well-known artists' hangout. When the legendary coffee shop
closed, some artists said they wanted to write songs about it, or make movies about it, and so this film is a tribute to their
spirits and that shop. He even showed the film to the shop's owner, who was touched by Royston's work. "I had about 50 friends
come and dance in the film. It was like an all-day party."
Royston also shared his fund-raising approach to filmmaking. "I work in TV commercials, and try to save money I make from that
for my films. There's a lot of support for independent filmmakers in Singapore, such as film production companies, and studios that
help filmmakers get loans, and the Singapore film commission."
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