TIFF, which has continued to discover and support young talented filmmakers mainly from Asia including Japan as the only Japanese film festival accredited by the International Federation of Film Producers Association (FIAPF). The Japan Foundation Asia Center, which carries out various projects for the objective of fostering deeper, mutual understanding and further developing symbiotic relationships
between Japan and our fellow Asian countries and regions.
Last year, we together launched a Film Culture Exchange project at TIFF focusing on Asian films until the year 2020, when the Tokyo Olympics and the Paralympics will be held. Through this project, we deepen mutual understanding within Asia, introduce many talents in Asia to the world and build a forward-looking network in Asia carrying TIFF as a platform for people in the film industry in Asia to communicate with each other. At the second year of the project, we will develop the co-production project “Asian Three-Fold Mirror”, a series of omnibus film production, to the next stage.
 
Co-production by the Japan Foundation Asia Center x TIFF
Japan x Asia – A Series of Omnibus Film Production: Asian Three-Fold Mirror
 
This “Asian Three-Fold Mirror” project leads three talented Asian directors including Japanese directors to produce an omnibus film with a common subject. Just like a three-fold mirror, the integrated film will reflect each country’s society and culture with three different angle and presentation by each different director. The project will seek to provide a chance for people to search identity and ways of life as individuals in Asia by recognizing, understanding and empathizing with each other as neighbors within Asia. Casting individuals connected in some form to other Asian countries as characters, the three directors exercise their own unique styles in the film suiting the theme while filming on location in Asian countries. The world premiere of their completed project will be screened next year at the 29th Tokyo International Film Festival. Also it is planned to be presented at major film festivals around the world and to be released in Japan and abroad.
 
Talented Directors from Asia
— Japan x the Philippines x Cambodia
 
Isao Yukisada (Japan)
Born in Kumamoto Prefecture in 1968. He made his feature film directing debut with Sunflower (2000), won the FIPRESCI Prize at the 5th Busan International Film Festival. He won numerous awards with Go (2001), including the Japan Academy Prize. Crying Out Love, in the Center of the World (2004) was a smash hit, attracting 6.2 million audience and taking in 8.5 billion yen at box-office. With subsequent films like Year One in the North (2005); Closed Note (2007); Parade (2010), which won the FIPRESCI Prize at the 60th Berlin
International Film Festival; Camellia (2011), a collaborative project with directors from Thailand and South Korea; he cemented his status as a hit maker. His latest work Pink and Gray will be released in 2016.
 
Brillante Mendoza (The Philippines) Mendoza is one of the most prominent and important Filipino filmmakers today. His debut film, Masahista (The Masseur) immediately won the Golden Leopard Award at the 2005 Locarno International Film Festival. In 2007, his Tirador (Slingshot) won the Caligari Film Award at the Berlin International Film Festival. Thy Womb won the La Navicella Venezia Cinema Award at the Venice Film Festival in 2012. But his most notable achievement is when he won the Best Director Award in the Cannes Film Festival for his Kinatay in 2009. His most recent work, TAKLUB (Trap) was selected in Un Certain Regard section for the 68th Cannes
Film Festival. In 2005, he founded Center Stage Productions (CSP), an independent film production outfit that aims to rethink and reinvent Filipino film by producing meaningful and relevant films.
 
Sotho Kulikar (Cambodia)
Born in 1973, Kulikar grew up during the Khmer Rouge regime and the long-running civil war. Her first major film experience was as Line Producer on Tomb Raider in 2000.
Through her production company Hanuman Films she has produced many films and documentaries in the last 15 years, including Ruin which won the Special Jury Prize at Venice Film Festival in 2013. The Last Reel is her directorial debut and she won the Spirit of Asia Award by the Japan Foundation Asia Center at the 27th Tokyo International Film Festival in 2014 and the Black Dragon Award at the Far
East Film Festival in Italy in 2015.