The 19th Tokyo International Film Festival came to a close this past Sunday, Oct. 29.
The winner of the festival's top prize, the Tokyo Sakura Grand Prix (worth US$100,000) was Michel Hazanavicius' French box-office hit and Seattle Film Festival winner OSS 117 Le Caire nid d'espions / OSS 117, Cairo Nest of Spies, a comedy-cum-spy-thriller starring Jean Dujardin as a French-speaking James Bond. In this particular film (there was a whole series of OSS 117 flicks in the 1950s and 1960s), M. Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath, aka OSS 117, gets mixed up with le danger, l'intrigue, and les femmes while trying to uncover a plot to control the Suez Canal.
The Special Jury Prize went to Thirteen Princess Trees, in which Chinese director Lu Yue's DV-cam depicts the growing pains of a group of young delinquents in a Sichuan high school, while Czech director Milos Forman and Japanese director Kon Ichikawa received the Akira Kurosawa Award for their career achievements.
The Best Actor Award was given to 2005 Prix Jutra nominee Roy Dupuis for his performance as Canadian hockey player Maurice Richard in Maurice Richard / The Rocket. (The film's English-language title refers to Richard's nickname.) Ten-year-old Abigail Breslin received the Best Actress Award for playing the ugly duckling who wants to become a catwalk swan in Little Miss Sunshine.
Though hardly either my favorite road movie or my favorite dysfunctional family comedy, Little Miss Sunshine is definitely a crowd pleaser. The film impressed both the festival's jury (who picked Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris as the Best Directors) and its filmgoers, who gave Little Miss Sunshine the Audience Award.
Patrick Tam's After This, Our Exile, a drama about a young man's loss of innocence after being turned into a criminal by his own father, won the Best Asian Film Award in the Winds of Asia sidebar. ("Eastern Winds of Asia" might be a better label for that particular sidebar, as I couldn't find any West, Central, or South Asian productions listed.)
And finally, Linda Hattendorf's The Cats of Mirikitani won the Best Film Award in the Japanese Eyes Sidebar. Described as "an intimate documentary exploring the lingering trauma of war and discrimination — and the healing power of friendship and art," The Cats of Mirikitani revolves around a "friendship" triangle — the filmmaker, her subject (politically engaged 80-year-old homeless artist Jimmy Tsutomu Mirikitani), and the filmmaker's cat — in a global environment filled with paranoia and mutual mistrust.
Tokyo Sakura Grand Prix:
OSS 117 Le Caire nid d'espions / OSS 117, Cairo Nest of Spies by Michel Hazanavicius
Special Jury Prize:
Thirteen Princess Trees by Lu Yue
Award for Best Director:
Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris for Little Miss Sunshine
Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role:
Roy Dupuis for Maurice Richard / The Rocket
Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role:
Abigail Breslin for Little Miss Sunshine
Audience Award:
Little Miss Sunshine by Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris
Akira Kurosawa Award:
Milos Forman
Kon Ichikawa
Winds of Asia Sidebar
Best Asian Film:
Fu Zi / After This, Our Exile by Patrick Tam
Award for Best Artistic Contribution:
Fu Zi / After This, Our Exile by Patrick Tam
Japanese Eyes Sidebar
Best Film:
The Cats of Mirikitani by Linda Hattendorf
Special Award:
Kengo Kora for M
Jury: Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet (president), Actress Youki Kudoh, producer William M. Mechanic, producer/Venice Film Festival director Marco Müller, director Garin Nugroho, director Mitsuo Yanagimachi
Jeunet replaced Claude Lelouch, who became unavailable because of "a sudden change of shooting schedule for his new project."
Tokyo International Film Festival Site