An Online Discussion on the Film “Passage of Life” (2017)
August 20, 2021 I ‘Rpm – 9PM (PHT)
LIVE: Zoom, JFM & Cinemalaya FB Page
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Award-winning Japanese Film “Passage of Life” to be showcased at the Cinemalaya 17
Akio Fujimoto
Director of “Passage of Life”
Akio Fujimoto born in 1988, in Osaka, Japan, studied family psychology in college. After he enrolled in the Visual Arts Academy Osaka where he learned the essence of filmmaking, he worked as selection committee chief for the stu-dent film category at the Nara International Film Festival.
In 2013, he directed his first short, “PSYCHEDELIC FAMILY”. A subtly crafted piece based on his own experiences in a crumbling family. He moved to Tokyo to work on his first feature, a Japan – Myanmar co-production PASSAGE OF LIFE, which took 5 ears to be completed. The film premiered at the Tokyo International Film festival in 2017, where it was awarded Best Asian Future Film and The Spirit of Asia Award. Since then, based in Yangon and Tokyo, he has directed programs and documentaries for Japanese Broadcaster NHK. His second feature film, ALONG THE SEA’s World Premiere will be at the 2020 San Sebastian Film festival, in the New Director Competition.
Kazutaka Watanabe
Producer of “Passage of Life”
Born in Fukui prefecture in 1986. After working for a film distribution company, an actors’ agency and a film festival staff, he started coordinating for Japanese-English translation and producing video subtitles and independent films. In 2014, he founded E.x.N, a company that handles film planning, distribution/sales, and translation and subtitling. Films that he produced are: Passage of Life (2017, Japan-Myanmar co-production), a short film Breached Bones Avenue (2020, Japan-Myanmar co-production) , Along the Sea (2020, Japan-VIetnum co-production), all directed by FUJIMOTO Akio.
He is also a program coordinator for the Rough-Cut section of Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival. He organizes the “Let’s Watch What We’ve Never Seen Before” event, where people watch videos and engage in dialogue.
Janus Victoria
Director of “Encounters with Silence”
Janus Victoria is a Filipina writer and director who works in features and documentaries. She is a recipient of the Talent Project Award from Talents Tokyo and the Japan Foundation Asia Center Fellowship. During her research residency in Tokyo, she completed a documentary about lonely deaths in apartments entitled Encounters with Silence.
Her first feature project Kodokushi, a co-production between the Philippines, Japan and Malaysia, recently received the International Co-Production Film Support from Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs.
