“English Is the Key”: Takeo Hisamatsu on Opening Japanese Cinema to the World During the 39th Tokyo International Film Festival

There is nary a time and place without financial concerns, but it’s well within the needs of any public-facing institution to maintain the image of strong, steady organization. Takeo Hisamatsu was appointed director of the Tokyo International Film Festival in April, resuming a title he held from 2017 to 2021 while inheriting some massive responsibilities for his nation’s cinema. As UniJapan’s vice president and former decision-maker at Warner Bros. Japan and Shochiku, he seems to appreciate the ever-evolving and never-quite-at-rest. Speaking to myself and four other journalists in Ginza’s posh Midtown Hibiya, Hisamatsu was extremely straight-faced about the challenges facing TIFF at a time when basic questions of authorship and autonomy—a question of basic humanity—are plaguing the film industry. Safe to say there is always the need for more money, and TIFF is staring down a 40th edition they hope to make a bigger-than-usual celebration. 

To his credit, the 39th year maintains a strong surface, continuing TIFF’s habit of housing numerous films that are either world-premiering or have yet to make a significant dent since debuts at other, larger gatherings. In three years’ attendance I’ve especially appreciated their emphasis on Asian (particularly Japanese) features less-than-likely to receive any stateside play. It’s consistent with Hisamatsu’s desire to see more institutional support for local cinema, but a somewhat tricky line to tread when recent competition winners come from outside—our conversation was days before the top prize went to Sister Brother Manhole Cover, a film that boasts six countries in its credits, none Japanese—and programs like Asian Future make a point of defining “Asian cinema” more broadly than Japan, Korea, China, and Hong Kong. I asked Hisamatsu for his wider thoughts on the matter, to which he responded:

“Given the current circumstances for international film festivals, it’s important to take a path between introducing foreign films to Japanese moviegoers [and] at the same time, that Japanese films to be [brought] to overseas movie fans. So we need to have both. But in terms of the balance, I look to put more emphasis on introducing Japanese films, or filmmakers, to the world. Because we are part of the film industry. I’m surprised that, this year, some international film festivals, they screen a lot of, you know, Korean films. They say ‘we are global,’ but you know, if we do the same thing—competing against Cannes or Berlin or Venice—I don’t think that’s the right way we should go. So as we are in this country—the culture, the people, the filmmakers—I think it’s obvious, or it’s natural, to put more emphasis on your own country’s films and filmmakers to introduce to the world. That’s how I think.”

Still, the money. While one can look at TIFF’s impressive list of sponsors—a globalized consortium boasting Rolex (which has made a massive push in recent years to support Sundance, NYFF, TIFF), likewise-major entities (Coca-Cola, Capcom, Bandai Namco, Morgan Stanley), and more regional groups—and grasp a job well done, Hisamatsu tells us nothing is guaranteed (or easy to plan) when government funds change every year. His preference: a certain amount is promised for at least two or three years à la athlete contracts. Which is not even accounting for more or less nothing getting cheaper nowadays (he noted airline tickets as a particular culprit) and few with wallets to open factoring art-in-hard-times bromides when deciding where to actually put the cash. (As one who appreciates round-trip flights to Tokyo and chance to witness something at least a bit unique in the increasingly homogenized film scene, I know where my hopes lie.) Hisamatsu was also insistent that film festivals aren’t festive enough. Where music festivals fulfill the concept of a large gathering by degrees and in, multiple senses, volume, why, he asks, can’t there be a balance between the serious act of watching movies in dark, quiet rooms and celebrating said movies and their makers in the immediate vicinity? The thinking has me hopeful for next year’s 40th-anniversary edition, about which during my week in Ginza I heard more than one intimation of aims for a bigger-than-usual celebration of Japanese cinema’s expansive history.

It’s fair to surmise that some greater sense of community would aid these efforts. To wit, Hisamatsu boasted of a party he’d host that evening for numerous Japanese filmmakers—on the one hand a social gathering natural to the festival environment and on the other his hope to ameliorate a lack of proper socializing in local film circles. This sparked my curiosity as to what most concerns local directors at a time when—here as elsewhere—money and AI hang like a black cloud. I did not expect the answer to be “English education,” but as he elaborated:

“Honestly. You know, in this country, English class starts from junior high school. I spent three years, in high school three years, and in college four years. So: ten years we learned English. Still, we still can’t speak English. That’s a problem. We have to change our education system. And English is the key. Fortunately for you—unfortunately for us—we have to spend more time to learn English. Maybe more words or something. It’s a handicap for us. But, you know, to communicate with other people in this given world, whether you like it or not, you have to speak English, right? And if you can speak English, you can communicate with more people around the world. European people, they speak English very well—like French people, Dutch people. The English alphabet may be much closer than us. For them, probably, it’s easier to speak English than us. So you can communicate in English easily. But for us, that’s like a handicap. But don’t complain; do something. Right?”

As Kenji Ishizaka told me just a day prior and Academy CEO Bill Kramer elaborated in his own TIFF panel, the windows between eastern and western industries are closing, while no less a figure than Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Ryusuke Hamaguchi told me that recent expeditions in France could be their stepping stone to an American debut. I don’t expect either to become fluent in English—one more readily imagines producers surrounding them with expert interpreters, even actors (à la Virginie Efira) learning for themselves—but I see the overlap. American cinema simply doesn’t have enough good filmmakers that it can afford to let the opportunity for cross-hemisphere exchange fall through the cracks. Should it come to pass sometime soon, support from the Tokyo International Film Festival and Hisamatsu will likely become part of that history.

Read the rest of our Tokyo coverage here.