KYOTO INTERNATIONAL FILM AND ART FESTIVAL 2020

While working as a filmmaker, Nobuhiko Obayashi also accomplished the great feat of directing approximately 2,000 television commercials during his life. His cinematic talent, developed from his days as an independent filmmaker, started to blossom in the early days of advertising agencies, and he continued to incorporate all kinds of artistic and visual experiments into his commercial works. In the 1970s, he became a leader in using so-called "foreign talent" in commercials, directing Catherine Deneuve, Sophia Loren, Michael Douglas, Ringo Starr and Charles Bronson. He has left behind a number of deeply narrative works that transcend the boundaries of commercials, that seem more like short films. Meanwhile, in Japan, Calpico, Glico's "Momoe x Tomokazu" series, and Japan National Railways' "Full Moon" were some of his most memorable hits. In fact, incorporating these commercials was the most difficult part of this program. However, each company gave permission in respect for Nobuhiko Obayashi and we were able to offer a special streaming service during the festival only. We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their cooperation.
【Planned a produced by Hori (currently Visual Contents Division of Horipro】"Mandom 71: A Man's Place" by Mandom (1972), "Katsura la Fontaine: Spiritual Landscape" by Kaneka Corporation (1972), "Yeah Yeah, Monroe, Yeah Yeah" by Renown (1974) / Glico Almond Chocolate (1968 )

Obayashi spent a year making this independent 16mm film while directing TV commercials in the 1960s. The entire film is interspersed with homages to Obayashi's beloved western and vampire films, and in particular to Roger Vadim's "Blood and Roses". This film is the culmination of his career as an individual filmmaker, and can be seen as the starting point for Obayashi's subsequent films, with its unique cut-offs, stop-motion photography, bold use of subtitles, and more. Legend has it that at the time of its release, the film became an underground craze and was screened at 60% of college festivals across the country. The film continues to be screened at film festivals in Japan and abroad to this day.

This is a work of Nobuhiko Obayashi when he was around 30 years old. This semi-documentary from the perspective of a young designer visiting Japan from Northern Europe tells the story of the filmmaker Nobuhiko Obayashi and his friends who the young designer encounters in Japan. The strong will, dreams and hopes of director Obayashi and his friends based on the idea of "We make our own times!" seem to surge out of the film and capture the atmosphere of the times. In recent years, Obayashi's style has been described as "shooting a documentary and creating a narrative film," and it's clear that the prototype for this style was perfected half a century ago. This film shows that the director's philosophy of filmmaking has never wavered from his experimental film days to "Labyrinth of Cinema".

Poisson D'avril is the French word for April Fool. On this day, if you write a message on a fish-shaped chocolate and send it to the one you love, you'll be rewarded with a beautiful love!
Film director Shohei Nemoto (Yukihiro Takahashi) marries the leading actress Fujiko Kinugasa (Miyoko Akaza) in his first film which was highly acclaimed. But it didn't do well at the box office and he didn't make a single film after that.
One dull day, they receive word that a chieftain (Tetsuro Tamba) from a southern island who had visited for a commercial shoot is coming to Japan.
On the chieftain's island, it's customary to offer your wife for the night as a token of friendship, and Shohei tries to get the young actress (Kanoko Kyo) to be double for his wife.
This stylish and light-hearted romantic comedy stars, is produced by and is scored by former Y.M.O. member Yukihiro Takahashi. Although this is his first starring role in a movie, he has an outstanding sensibility and fashion sense, and on top of that, he gives us an amazing musical number.

This work takes a look at the making of "Casting Blossoms to the Sky" (2012), but it can't exactly be called a making of the film. Rather, it's a textbook of the film that goes beyond the confines of a simple making of the film. Chigumi, Obayashi's daughter, took footage as a part of the making-of-the-film team during filming of the actual movie, and the director himself re-assembled the footage and skillfully incorporated actual film footage, weaving together the truth and falsehoods of the film in a way that took half a year to create, giving birth to a new piece of work by Obayashi. This was an epic task that is almost three times as large as the actual film!
Director Nobuhiko Obayashi deliberately did not add an end mark to "Casting Blossoms to the Sky". This allows the story in the film to gradually seep into reality. The film includes a number of dramas that derive from the shooting the film on set, previews of the finished film, and trips to screenings around the country. This is a complete look at "Casting Blossoms to the Sky". This work is like taking a journey with Obayashi during the creation of the film.

This story that sneaks up on you was born out of Nobuhiko Obayashi, then 50 years of age, meeting 14 year old Kaori Sakagami for the first time. Set in Onomichi, which has been seen somewhere, someday in previous Obayashi movies, this music video features three characters, "Me, Shadow and I", by Kaori Sakagami. The recorded songs are the two songs Lace Cardigan and Privacy. The staff include Yoshitaka Sakamoto as cinematographer with Obayashi since his CM days, art director Kazuo Satsuya who had worked with Obayashi, and sound designer Shohei Hayashi, all veterans of Obayashi films. The location of Onomichi was carefully shot over 5 days. This is a short, but fine Obayashi film.

On the train to his hometown Onomichi, film director Mario Baba (Tomokazu Miura) meets a mysterious gentleman (Kei Tani) with a derby hat and Dallas mustache, as he begins to retrace his childhood memories. He reminisces about a beautiful young girl Chiyoko (Raimi Arisaka) who is with a man donning a carp tattoo as well as a foreign director (Nobuhiko Obayashi!) carrying a big camera who comes from Hiroshima which was devastated by the atomic bomb, to shoot the beautiful scenery of Onomichi. He also has memories of his father (Riki Takeuchi) who is a military doctor who returned from the war, as well as his kind mother (Yoko Minamino), his grandfather (Tetsuro Tamba) and his grandmother (Wakaba Irie).
And then he remembers the anime Manuke Sensei that he made when he was a child. Nobuhiko Obayashi directed, wrote the original story, and wrote the screenplay for this fantasy in which Manuke Sensei, a character he created in his childhood, teaches us about heart, a quality which modern people have lost. Some of the scenes of Takuro Atsugi , who played the role of Mario Baba as a child, are also used in his latest film, "Labyrinth of Cinema". This is an autobiographical work depicting the childhood of Nobuhiko Obayashi.

CANCION was a unit made up of Satoshi Furuya and Minoru Shigemoto which was active from 2004 to 2006. Nobuhiko Obayashi himself wrote the srcipt for the promotional video of their second single Liar, and this film, Liar. The Movie was shot on location at Obayashi's old village Onomichi with cutting edge staff like the shooting of a film.
The images of Director Obayashi add to the lyrics that spell out the frustration of a young man and woman who can't move on fro ma "less than" relationship to take the next step. It shows the sadness peculiar to adolescence.
The charm of CANCION was their twin acoustic guitars and vocals. The soft and natural sound of Satoshi Furuya and Minoru Shigemoto flow well over the scenery of Onomichi.
*Please note that the image quality is poor due to the materials that the video for delivery was created from.

The summer of 2011, after March 11. Reiko Endo (Yasuko Matsuyuki), a newspaper reporter from Amakusa, Kumamoto Prefecture, visits Nagaoka City, Niigata Prefecture, like she was being led there. The reason for this was to take a look at Nagaoka, which was one of the first cities to accept victims of the Great East Japan Earthquake, from a reporter's perspective. Her heart is captured by a letter from a former lover, Kenichi Katayama (Masahiro Takashima), who lives in Yamakoshi. Above all, she experiences the prayers and wishes in the Nagaoka fireworks. Reiko, who is tasked with the job of reporting, meets a legendary fireworks artist and wandering painter Kiyoshi Yamashita, along with a mysterious girl on a unicycle, and she has a series of strange experiences that, when she realizes are intertwined with the history of Nagaoka, lead to the start of a miraculous festival in Nagaoka!

This work takes a look at the making of "Casting Blossoms to the Sky" (2012), but it can't exactly be called a making of the film. Rather, it's a textbook of the film that goes beyond the confines of a simple making of the film. Chigumi, Obayashi's daughter, took footage as a part of the making-of-the-film team during filming of the actual movie, and the director himself re-assembled the footage and skillfully incorporated actual film footage, weaving together the truth and falsehoods of the film in a way that took half a year to create, giving birth to a new piece of work by Obayashi. This was an epic task that is almost three times as large as the actual film!
Director Nobuhiko Obayashi deliberately did not add an end mark to "Casting Blossoms to the Sky". This allows the story in the film to gradually seep into reality. The film includes a number of dramas that derive from the shooting the film on set, previews of the finished film, and trips to screenings around the country. This is a complete look at "Casting Blossoms to the Sky". This work is like taking a journey with Obayashi during the creation of the film.

Editing: Nobuhiko Obayashi, Hisaki Sanbongi

Ashibetsu in Hokkaido is an old northern town that once flourished as a coal mining town. The story unfolds in this beautiful land filled with stars on a clear night. Mitsuo Suzuki (Toru Shinagawa) was born in this town and has been working as a general practitioner for a long time. After closing his clinic, he and his granddaughter, Kanna (Saki Terashima), a nurse, start an antique shop named Hoshifuru Bunkado (Starry Night Culture Hall). One day, when Kanna comes home from the hospital where she works, she finds Mitsuo passed out in his studio at the back of the house. Kanna rushes to call an ambulance, but is told that Mitsuo has only a short time to live. Taking this opportunity, Mitsuo's relatives (Takehiro Murata, Yutaka Matsushige, Hirona Yamazaki, Tokie Hidari), who normally live apart, return one by one to Ashibetsu with their own family affairs. Just as Mitsuo is about to draw his last breath, a mysterious woman, Nobuko (Takako Tokiwa), appears in his hospital room. Her arrival leads the story to the spectacular events of Mitsuo's unknown past as he wanders between past and present. In the midst of the war in Sakhalin, which continued to cast a shadow over Hokkaido's history even after August 15, immediately after the war, Mitsuo's best friend Ono (Takao Ito) and the woman he has feelings for, Ayano (Yumi Adachi), are involved in a secret affair. A certain poem by Chuya Nakahara connects Mitsuo and Nobuko. This epic fantasy unfolds while considering what family is and what it means to live in the backdrop of Ashibetsu with its ever-changing breath-taking seasons.
Due to the events of March 11, 2011, director Nobuhiko Obayashi decided to take the opportunity to make this film as a filmmaker with the responsibility and commitment to the future, giving it his all.

This making of "Seven Weeks" was newly made for limited release during the Kyoto International Film & Art Festival 2020 where it will be released in Japan for the first time. Cinematography was carried out by Chigumi, daughter of director Obayashi. From the daughter's point of view, this film closely follows the process from June 2013 at the start of filming to July when filming finished and then returns to Ashibetsu with the completed film in director Obayashi's possession. The film shows Nobuhiko Obayashi's true feelings, which no one else can capture, as well as his energetic performance as he runs all around the set. In addition, about 200 hours of footage shot in Ashibetsu, Hokkaido, was used to compare the making of the film with the actual film, and the film was composed in such a way that it clearly shows the secrets of Obayashi films and how they are made. There are no future screenings scheduled after this one, so don't miss it!

Filming, coverage, planning: Chigumi Obayashi
Editing cooperation: Hisaki Sanbongi
Editing: Star Gate
Production: Shinya Yamamoto
Production: Chigumi Obayashi, Naofumi Nakamura

Since his debut as a commercial film director in 1977, Nobuhiko Obayashi has made more than 40 films, including the Onomichi Trilogy, and remains one of Japan's leading filmmakers. Obayashi was married to Kyoko Obayashi, who supported him in his private and public life for 60 years and also worked as a producer on his films. Using footage from the past, testimonies of his friends, and other footage, we take a look back on Obayashi's youth when he started making independent films and the days he spent with his wife Kyoko, delving into the unique bond the two had together.

This is a rare company promotion movie, which was only screened for the visitors to Kirin beer factories in 1970. The first half of the movie contains quotes about beer, the newly-opened Yokohama factory, and photo collages of contemporary lifestyles. In the latter half, a girl playing a “beer fairy” introduces the process of beer making in a factory by dancing and singing “Bubbly, bubbly, Syuwa.” It is tailored with a pop and chic musical style. In the ending scene, Kyoko, the wife of Nobuhiko Obayashi, and Chigumi, the daughter of Nobuhiko Obayashi are toasting with beer other actors of Obayashi movies back then. It is filmed by Shigeichi Nagano, a cinematographer of the Obayashi movies “Peking’s Watermelon” and “The Two.” This valuable piece was so epoch-making, as a promotion video back then, that it has become legendary. Through the courtesy of Kirin Holdings Company, this is now available to the public. Do not miss the chance to see this wonderful piece.

This special program will feature a commentary of "Nobuhiko Obayashi's Treasure Chest: A Wonderland Imaginary Movie Theater" and a special talk program of the secrets behind its production, the filmmaking methods of Director Nobuhiko Obayashi and the essence ofhis films, speaking to his wife and producer of Obayashi's films, Kyoko Obayashi, his daughter, Chigumi Obayashi, and the muse-like actress of his later works, actress Takako Tokiwa.