News of Akihiro Miwa’s passing closed a week that also saw the government cutting the budget for the National Film Archive of Japan by 40%. My colleague Aaron Gerow already explained that the NFAJ was expected to earn more on its own, caught as it is between the message sent about public funding and the absence of tax breaks for larger donations (1). It is difficult to imagine how it can continue to operate with an even smaller budget. Its attractive location in Kyobashi, next to Ginza, is less attuned to the current zeitgeist in the area, all about tourism and extreme shopping. Yet the Kabuki-za feels eternal, as does Shochiku a few steps away.
The NFAJ might have looked in the past to the Cinémathèque Française as a model, or even the more modest Swiss Film Archive in Lausanne, founded by Freddy Buache. But one might suggest the curatorial relevance of its programming did not encourage a renewal of its audience, in spite of seminal screenings such as those in ‘Films made by Women’. Nonetheless, it stood as one of the very few spaces in Japan where an audience could get a sense of why Japanese film history continues to resonate internationally. But that audience isn’t in Kyobashi, even when it had a film school as its neighbor for decades. What to make then of such a denial of black & white cinema?
By contrast, it is impossible to think of Miwa, who passed away at 91, in anything else but color. I first met him at the start of his collaboration with Miyazaki Hayao, for an interview in 1997. I was hoping to include discussion of his work with Fukasaku Kinji, Terayama Shuji, his fabulous albums of the sixties and seventies. But I was asked to keep it to Princess Mononoke. I would meet him several times afterwards, notably in the context of Japan celebrated by France, in Japan; various television portraits of her followed on French tv networks. I may dig out that first, pre-internet, conversation. Perhaps the NFAJ will try to program a retrospective of how Miwa navigated his way through Japan’s film history.
1-Aaron Gerow also posted that the ArchiveI will try to make up some of the loss through crowd funding. They are aiming for 100 million yen (about 620,000 dollars). Here’s the link:
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