第27回東京国際映画祭　共催企画　ＭＰＡセミナー「映画と資金 – 終わらないドラマ」を開催しました October.29.2014

TOKYO/SINGAPORE – On October 27, with support from the Embassy of the United States of America and the Federation of Japanese Films Industry (FJFI), Japan Association for International Promotion of the Moving Image (UNIJAPAN) and Motion Picture Association (MPA) jointly held a seminar themed “Movies and the Money: A Long-Running Drama”.

US Ambassador Caroline Kennedy, Chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) Christopher Dodd, and renowned film producer and educator Lord David Puttnam, addressed a capacity audience of filmmakers, government and Embassy representatives, and film festival goers, highlighting the shifting relationship between movies and the money, most especially in a digital age.

Conducted as part of the 27th Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) and held at Roppongi Hills Mori Tower, the event also featured distinguished speakers including Mike Ellis, President and Managing Director, Asia‐Pacific Region, MPA; Yasushi Shiina, Director General TIFF; Shigenori Taguchi, Counselor, Secretariat of Intellectual Property Strategy Headquarters, Cabinet Secretariat; and Tomohiro Tohyama, Attorney – at – law, Partner, TMI Associates.

Presenting the keynote speech, Lord David Puttnam interrogated the inevitable friction between art and industry, and the specific factors that will come to affect the production of movies in the 21st Century. He explored the most recent mechanisms of distribution, across all platforms, that now allow filmmakers to speak to ever wider international audiences and highlighted the likely future role of the Asia Pacific region in World Cinema. Concluding his remarks, Lord Puttnam said, “…let’s never forget that it’s stories that motivate consumption, rather than varieties of corporate ownership, or any particular means of production or delivery channel. All the more reason to concentrate on our plans for growth on audience connection. Ultimately, ‘connectedness’ is far more about people than it ever is about technology.”

The seminar was webcast live on Nico Nico Live and FC2 Live, two of Japan’s most popular online video platforms.

The MPA also supported the MoMA Best Film screenings, a hugely popular event during the Festival. This year, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) worked closely with TIFF and the Japan Community Cinema Centre (F Cinema Project) to showcase some selected vintage prints from the collection of MoMA’s Department of Film. The screenings are scheduled from October 24 through November 9 and will feature 17 feature length and short films, including great classics from John Ford, Howard Hawks, Elia Kazan and others.

Earlier during TIFF, Lord Puttnam spoke to an entranced full house at a special retrospective screening of a digitally remastered copy of the Academy Award-winning Chariots of Fire, sharing personal anecdotes from the making of the film including his surprise when it won Best Film at the Academy Awards.

See images from MPA / TIFF events here.

Click here to view a copy of Lord Puttnam’s Keynote Speech to the MPA Seminar at TIFF.

UNIJAPAN is a non-profit organization established in 1957 by the Japanese film industry under the auspice of the Government of Japan (the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), for the purpose of promoting Japanese cinema abroad. Initially named ‘Association for the Diffusion of Japanese Film Abroad’ (UniJapan Film), in year 2005 it joined hands with the organizer of Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF), forming a new organization ‘Japan Association for International Promotion of the Moving Image’ (UNIJAPAN).