Archive for the ‘Screenings’ Category

Jitensha Keeps Rollin’

Monday, May 17th, 2010

It’s hard to believe that it’s been a year since we premiered Jitensha at AFI.  We had big hopes for this film, but its success has definitely exceeded our expectations.  A year later, Jitensha is still picking up steam.

Last weekend, Jitensha picked up two awards:  Prix du Jury Jeune (Youth Jury Prize) from the Brussels Short Film Festival and the Golden Reel (Best Short Film) at Visual Communication’s Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival.

The latter is especially meaningful because Leilani and I have been attending their festival since we were in our first year of film school.  It’s a place that showcases the best in Asian and Asian American cinema.  There are so many great Asian American works that are produced each year; sadly, many of them don’t get the recognition that they deserve, so festivals like LAAPFF have become an essential venue to celebrate the Asian American experience.

Visual Communications is an organization that I highly respect.  At their filmmaker’s breakfast, the first two people I met were Academy Award winners– and they were Asian American.  VC is close to many people’s hearts because of how they have nurtured and supported generations of Asian American filmmakers.

As I mentioned in a previous blog, Jitensha received two awards (best mixed video and best overall faculty video) from the Broadcast Education Association’s Festival of Media Arts in April.  At the awards ceremony in Las Vegas, they announced a new award that they were going to give to the best faculty submission, which ranged from such disciplines as screenwriting, audio, interactive media, documentary and video.  This inaugural award, which is called the Chair’s Award, was given to Jitensha.  Leilani and I were shocked.  It was amazing to be given this award by my fellow media educators from across the country.

In June, we have the Talent 1 Media Film Festival (LA), the Bicycle Film Festival (NYC),  the Arcipelago Film Festival (Rome, Italy) and Images That Matter Film Festival (Ethiopia).  We also just learned that Jitensha will screen at the Hawaii International Film Festival in October.  We got rejected from Hawaii last year, but the programming director Anderson Le saw Jitensha at LAAPFF and invited it to screen this year.  Just goes to show that anything can happen.

We continue to be grateful for all these things.  And congratulations to the team– the Biola students, Paul Nethercott and everyone at Studio Re:, Yu Shibuya and Yugo Saso.

bea-faculty-award2-iphone-cell

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Next up: Clermont-Ferrand, France

Tuesday, December 8th, 2009

We just got word that Jitensha has been invited to be part of the 2010 International Competition of the Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival in France. This is widely considered to be the top film festival in the world dedicated to short films. I’m particularly excited because short films tend to fall into the background at feature-driven festivals like Venice and Sundance, but at Clermont-Ferrand they are the main attraction. Plus, this festival attracts some of the largest film-going crowds of any festival in the world with 137,196 admissions and over 2,800 professional delegates in 2009.

Here’s a blurb from the Daily Variety article on the 50 unmissable festivals: “The ‘Cannes of short films’ overruns a university town in the shadow of active volcanoes, attracting such devoted audiences that the closing ceremonies are performed three times in a row in order to seat 4,500 spectators. The hyphenated city considers the event so vital that it built a permanent year-round headquarters for the programmers. The winter fest’s accompanying market is a marvel of organization.”

After doing a little research, I found out that my alma mater, USC, has had one film screen in competition at Clermont-Ferrand in the past eight years. With over 2,000 film submissions to this year’s International Competition alone, Jitensha is continuing to defy the odds and pave the way for future generations at Biola. Seventy-eight films were chosen from fifty-nine countries.

Congrats to Team Jitensha, who put their hearts into making this film, and thanks be to God for allowing Jitensha to continue to travel.

For more info, please visit: http://www.clermont-filmfest.com/index.php?m=134

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Jitensha wins the Vision Award at the Heartland Film Festival!

Saturday, November 7th, 2009

heartland-sign

This was an incredible weekend on many levels.  The festival flew me out to Indianapolis, greeted me at the airport with my own stretch limo and put me up in a beautiful little hotel.  On the second floor of the hotel was a hospitality suite/filmmaker’s lounge, stocked with amenities.   It was here that I got to spend time with like-minded filmmakers, who had traveled far to be at the festival.

I’ve been to a lot of festivals and screened with countless films that I abhorred.  This was the first festival in which I loved all of the films I screened with.  It was truly an honor to be included with the other Crystal Heart Award winners.  In addition to screening with great films, I had the privilege of actually getting to know the illustrious filmmakers behind the short films, which included Irene Taylor Brodsky (Oscar nominee for The Final Inch), Gregg Helvey (Student Academy Award winner for Kavi), Jeremiah Crowell (Sundance official selection for Small Collection), Daniel Harrich (Student Emmy winner for Acholiland), Melody George (Marbles with Thoreau) and Christian Sonderby Jepsen (Side by Side).

With this kind of company, you can imagine my shock when Jitensha was announced as the winner of the Vision Award for Best Short Film.   Here’s a link to the award ceremony (the short film award is announced at about the 21st minute):

http://www.vimeo.com/7223474

As much as I was hoping to win this award, I was stunned when the rambling lady finally said the word “bicycle.”  Since I had forgotten to thank Leilani during my Crystal Heart award speech, I was grateful to have this opportunity to thank her because I know I would not be where I am today without her.

I accept the award on behalf of our entire team.  Because it was a collaboration from the beginning, it is clear to me that creating Jitensha was not a one man show.  The story began with a brilliant idea by Yu Shibuya and ended with notes from Leilani that changed the entire structure of the film.  It included tireless hours of planning on both sides of the Pacific.  We could have never done it without the support of those from Studio Re: and Biola University.

The people of Indianapolis, the staff of the Heartland Film Festival and my fellow filmmakers all made this a truly moving experience that I will keep with me forever.  Whereas the Venice Film Festival was driven by the industry and star power, Heartland was about the filmmakers, audiences and interaction between the two.  We make films because we want to share them.  Heartland was the perfect place to be able to do that because their audiences were hungry for good stories.  It is encouraging to have your life’s work be embraced; by the end of the weekend, I felt so incredibly affirmed as an artist and a person.

Now it’s time to continue on this journey with a renewed sense of purpose.  Jitensha screens at the Starz Denver Film Festival next weekend.  Please stay tuned.

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Thoughts on the Venice Film Festival

Wednesday, October 7th, 2009

The Jitensha Crew at the Venice Film Festival

The Jitensha Crew at the Venice Film Festival

Being on the Lido (a small resort island south of the city) was amazing.  The festival couldn’t have been at a more beautiful time of the year.  The town was taken over by the festival– statues of lions with wings dotted the landscape and large red facades were erected, which added to the glamor of the event.  Before our screening, the cast and crews of each film in our program were ushered into the theater, where we met the applause of the audience.  There were introductions in Italian, which sounded so formal (and cool), and our film looked good playing in its new DCP format.

Of the twenty short films in competition at the Venice Film Festival, I believe we had the largest crew in attendance.  In all, seven students (Kyle, Skylar, Andrew, Daniel, Christian, Allan, and Stephanie), lead actor Yugo Saso, writer Yu Shibuya and producer Paul Nethercott made the trip to Italy along with my wife Leilani and I.  The fact that seven students found a way to get there amazes me.  It shows that they take ownership of the film and are proud of their work.  Jitensha truly was a collaborative effort from the beginning of pre-production all the way to the premiere.

On our last night together as a team, we had dinner at a little place overlooking the sea called Caribe.   Yugo gave a toast, saying that one year ago, he didn’t know any of us.  Now, he’s seen us in Japan, the U.S. (for the premiere) and Italy.  The students commented that they have seen Yugo on three continents.  It is amazing that one year ago Jitensha did not exist, but now through our determination (and the will of God), it is a film—a piece of art—that stands on its own.  And not just that, it has been the vehicle that has brought us together and sent us around the world.  Wow.

The films that we screened with were, for the most part, dark in theme.  There were films about murder, incest and adultery; there were also films that left us completely dumbfounded.  I’m happy to say that Jitensha seemed to stand out like a sore thumb because it was so hopeful and lighthearted in nature.  The festival programmers went as far as to call it a comedy, much to the dismay of the students.  Because most of the other films were so tragic, it made sense that anything with a glimmer of hope would be called a comedy.  It was truly an honor to be in the festival, especially after seeing the kinds of films the festival generally chooses to showcase.

I had the chance to speak with one of the pre-selection committee members named Stefano, who told me that there were in fact 1600 short film submissions—all of which he viewed.  Upon his first screening of Jitensha, he immediately knew that this was a film that was going to be in the festival.  We are still in awe that our little film could be part of something so big.

Next up we have the Heartland Film Festival.  I will try to post from Indianapolis.  Thanks for reading.

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The World Premiere

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009

Thank you to everyone who came out to AFI to see our first public screening of “Jitensha.”  Everything went very smoothly– the theater was packed, the film looked great projecting from HDCam, and the audience responded the way we hoped they would.  It was a special night for everyone who worked on the film.  One year ago, the Japan team was assembled through an application process.  Now a year later, it was gratifying to see our work displayed before an audience excited to hear about our adventures.

It was also amazing to have our lead actor, Yugo Saso, fly out from Tokyo to attend the premiere.  He is one of the most gracious people I have ever met and he was genuinely happy to reunite with our crew.

The film is officially done and ready to submit to film festivals.  Please continue to follow us as we take this journey with “Jitensha.”

the crew and yugo saso

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