"JFF+ INDEPENDENT CINEMA," a special streaming project organized by the Japan Foundation, focuses on "artisanal theaters" that have long supported Japan's film culture, and will stream Japanese films recommended by artisanal theater managers free of charge to overseas audiences.

Tai Hajime, manager of Cinema 5 in Oita City, Oita Prefecture, recommended two films: Yasuhiro Yoshida's "Tabidachi no Shimauta ~Jugo no Haru~" (2013) and Yoshiaki Tokita's " Yume wa Oshi no Ishasan " (2014). These are stories of people struggling to survive in places far from big cities, such as remote islands in Okinawa and mountain villages in Niigata.

This time, we visited Cinema 5, where Manager Hajime Tai works, and spoke to him about the history of the cinema and the current state of Japanese films.

Interview and text: Tsukinaga Rie Photography: Nishimura Masahiro Editing: The Japan Foundation

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Oita Prefecture, located in eastern Kyushu, is known for its hot springs such as Beppu and Yufuin. In 1989, Oita's first mini-theater, Cinema 5, opened in a shopping district in the center of Oita City, the prefectural capital. Tai Hajime, who used to run screenings with his friends, took over the old movie theater that had been operating in the same location and revived it as a new mini-theater. In 2011, another movie theater located about a two-minute walk away closed, so Tai took over the old one and opened a sister theater, Cinema 5 bis.

At its peak, Oita City had more than 20 movie theaters in operation, and even in 1989, there were still more than 10 in operation. Over the years, many movie theaters have gone out of business, but Cinema 5 has continued to show films as a local mini-theater for over 30 years.

Tai: The first movie theater opened here around 1967. The theater company that operated it at the time had a chain of five movie theaters called "Roxy" in Oita City. The name must have changed over the years, but there were four big ones, including "Grand Roxy" and "Toho Roxy," and this was a small movie theater that was added on as the fifth one. However, around 1988, when its predecessor, "Cinema 5," was about to close, I said to them, "If you're going to close it down, please let me run the movie theater," and that's how the current "Cinema 5" began.

What was the background that led Tai, who was in his early 30s at the time, to take on the management of a movie theater?

TaiI was born in Gifu City, but grew up in the hot spring town of Beppu from the age of three, and moved to Oita City when I was about 20. When I was young, I was just a regular movie fan and would do independent screenings of 16mm films. In 1976, the Yufuin Film Festival started, and I participated as one of the executive committee members.

In the late 1980s, when I started Cinema 5, various films that had never been seen in Japan before, such as those by Wim Wenders and Daniel Schmidt, began to be shown in mini-theaters in Tokyo. However, these films were not shown in regional cities, so young film enthusiasts like us from the region somehow managed to watch these films by renting 35mm film ourselves and holding screenings at theaters after hours. Just as I was beginning to think about how we could make these screenings more sustainable, talk of the closure of Cinema 5 came up.

Most people thought that it would be impossible to start a new mini-theater in reality. At the time, it was said that mini-theaters could only be run in large cities with a population of at least 1 million, so starting a mini-theater in Oita City, with a population of about 400,000, was tantamount to suicide. When I first started, I thought, "Maybe we can do it for three years," and instead, I thought it would be good if we could do something that would remain in people's memories for 10 years. But when we started, it somehow got on track, and before we knew it, more than 30 years had passed. Meanwhile, the other four theaters in the "Roxy" chain all went out of business within about two years of our opening.

On January 7, 1989, the new Cinema 5 opened with the screening of Wim Wenders's "Wings of Desire" (1987), a huge hit at a Tokyo arthouse theater. But that day turned out to be an unexpectedly historic one.

Tai: On the morning of January 7, 1989, just as the cinema was due to open, we received news that Emperor Showa had passed away. Thus, my first job as a cinema owner was to post a notice of the Emperor's death at the cinema entrance. The theater association had already decided in advance how cinemas should respond in the event of a death, so I put on the mourning badge they had prepared for me and greeted the customers on the opening day in a solemn atmosphere. We were also told not to play music between screenings as this was considered inappropriate, and on top of that, the film they were screening was "Wings of Desire." It was a very dark beginning.

Incidentally, our sister theater, Cinema 5 bis, opened on March 12, 2011, the day after the Great East Japan Earthquake. The day before, while we were preparing to open, we learned about the earthquake on the news, and gradually we realized that something terrible had happened. The next day, it was reported that the majority of people had died, and all we could do was quietly go ahead with the opening process.

Tai has been in contact with film enthusiasts from all over the country since he was young through independent screening activities, and has served as the representative director of the Community Cinema Center since 2013. He has also thoroughly witnessed the changes in Japanese movie theaters, not just independent theaters, from the late 1980s to the present day.

Tai:Looking back now, I think that the mini-theater boom that began in Tokyo in the late 1980s was the product of a kind of bubble. Since its premiere in 1988 at Tokyo's Chanter Cine (which changed its name to TOHO Cinemas Chanter in 2009), "Wings of Desire" had a long run of over 30 weeks, and probably about 200,000 people saw it nationwide. Andrei Tarkovsky's "Sacrifice" (1986) was released at the Yurakucho Subaruza (which closed in 2019) in 1987, and I heard that about 50,000 people attended in Tokyo alone. I think 70% of the audience for both films just had to fight sleepiness, but that was fine at the time. Along with the mini-theater boom, there was a trend that it was cool to spend money on useless things, and it didn't matter if the movie was boring. Even films like Jacques Rivette's Beautiful Quarrelsome (1991), which are nearly four hours long and require you to simply endure, were watched with satisfaction.

Meanwhile in Japan, the first multiplex cinema in Japan, Warner Mycal Cinemas Ebina, opened in 1993, and the number of cinemas across the country began to grow rapidly. Cinemas with many screens then produced a succession of huge hits, including Hollywood films such as "Speed" (1994), "Independence Day" (1996), "Titanic" (1997), and "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" (2001), as well as Japanese films such as Hayao Miyazaki's "Princess Mononoke" (1997).

As a result, traditional movie theaters went out of business one after another, and the atmosphere of independent theaters also gradually began to change around 1997, when Titanic became a huge hit and Trainspotting (1996) became a hot topic.

The change in the environment surrounding independent cinemas is not limited to the rise of multiplex cinemas. Tai says that what audiences want from movies has gradually changed since the start of the 21st century.

Tai: It was actually the Korean film boom that saved mini-theaters from their predicament in the early 2000s. At the time, Korean films were hardly screened in multiplexes, so it was the success of films like "Shiri" (1999) that saved us mini-theaters financially.

On the other hand, from around this time, what people wanted from movies also began to change. I think a big turning point for this was on May 27, 2001, on the final day of the summer sumo tournament. An injured Yokozuna Takanohana fought Musashimaru for the championship and won brilliantly. And when he received the award, the Prime Minister at the time, Junichiro Koizumi, said, "I was moved!" From that moment on, everyone began to seek "movement" as if a dam had burst. In fact, from that day on, we started receiving frequent calls asking, "Is this movie moving?" or "Are there any moving movies playing now?"

People began to think that they no longer had to pretend to understand difficult films, and that it was okay to be moved by them more honestly. At the same time, the economic policies pushed forward by the Koizumi administration led the whole of Japan to consider cost-effectiveness as the number one priority. The society became one in which people thought, "If I pay, I have to get something out of it," and it seems that the trend that supported the previous mini-theater boom, of paying money to see films that you don't understand, was gradually pushed aside.

Movie theaters are now expected to provide clear services. For example, the services I think movie theaters should provide are to properly distribute flyers for movies that are currently being shown. Flyers are promotional materials used for advertising before the screening, so they are usually removed once the screening begins, but we keep them on display during the screening. It's fine if customers who have seen a movie pick up a flyer for the movie on their way home and ruminate on the impressions they had. I don't mind if pamphlets stop selling because of that. That's what I consider to be a service, but nowadays, service has become all about money, about how cheaply you can watch a movie. That's really sad.

One of my weaknesses is that I always end up talking about the past, but I've been doing this for quite a while, so it can't be helped. Even when I try to think about the future, I always end up saying, "If only it were like this in the past...". In the end, there's only one thing I want to talk about. "Why isn't it the past now?"

With a wry smile, Tai spoke about the "power" of film, which he feels is so necessary right now.

Tai: Everyone loves to say they were "moved," but to me, being "moved" is when you watch a movie and think, "I was born to see this movie." Of course, that's impossible. But I think there's something about movies that makes you think that without any basis. I think movies have some power to make people who are struggling to live think, "Ah, I wonder if I'll try to live tomorrow," after watching a movie. I've been thinking about these things especially since 3/11.

Movies are never useful for anything. We don't watch movies to achieve some purpose, and watching them doesn't cause any visible changes. But in other words, movies are the end point of all actions. We drive a car to go see a movie. We eat a meal to watch a movie. In other words, we don't watch movies for something, we live every day to watch movies. And I think that is what people call culture. Even "eating" is normally an essential act for humans to get nutrition, but as soon as it develops and we start to care about the dishes we serve our food in, or the secret ingredients, or other useless things that are essentially useless, it becomes a "culture."

Movies are the same; they are not directly useful in life, but that is exactly why they have existed as "culture". We all know that the most useless thing is ourselves. But if these completely useless movies exist in the world and are wanted by more than a few people, then maybe it's okay for us to exist in the world too. Don't you think so?

In recent years, movie theaters have been struggling financially, but what is the significance of mini-theaters in times like these?

Tai: I don't think there's anyone who wants to watch a movie on a small screen, but the good thing about a small theater is that you can see the faces of each and every audience member. Movies are always measured by numbers, like how many tens of thousands of people attended in one day, but if you pick out each person, you can see the various emotions they each have. I think the significance of a mini theater is being able to be aware of each and every person's face.

In a world where everything is uncertain, people who have no connection with each other share a moment by chance, and each feels something from the movie and goes home. I think it might be a good thing that such a place as a movie theater exists in a town. It doesn't matter what the audience thinks. Movies belong to the people who watch them, not the people who make them.

Sometimes, directors come to our cinema to give talks, but it's not to get them to tell us the reason for making the film or to give us the answers. It's because we want to show the directors, "The people who pay to see your film look like this." So, there's no need for the audience to listen to the director and think, "Is my impression correct?" The audience can let their own thoughts run wild and create their own individual film. That's enough.

Cinema 5 has a long history, so what are some of its hit films so far?

Tai: The movie that got the most visitors was "Seven Years in Tibet" (1997), but the one that left the strongest impression on me was "Someday I'll Read" (2004) directed by Ogata Akira. This movie drew an audience just at our theater, which was on par with that of a theater in Tokyo. I don't know why this movie was a hit at our theater. It wasn't advertised in any special way. However, I saw the preview and loved it so much that I continued to talk about it to people every day for almost half a year. That's all I said. "This movie is so, so good." I didn't convey the content at all. But it's the act of showing someone struggling to communicate that moves them. That should be stronger than any brilliant advertising slogan.

This time's recommended film, "My Dream is to be a Cow Doctor," is also one of my favorite movies, and it ended up being so crowded that it accounted for about one-tenth of the national box office revenue at our school. I thought it was really amazing and wonderful that a child who studied so hard at an elementary school on the verge of closing down could actually become a veterinarian. "Departure Island Song" was also filmed on a really small island called Minamidaito Island. Although it is fiction, it may have something in common with "My Dream is to be a Cow Doctor."

Finally, when I asked Tai about the appeal of Oita City, he gave me a typical answer.

Tai：If you go to nearby Beppu, there are plenty of hot springs, the climate is warm, and typhoons haven't come much recently, so I think it's a nice place to live. But it's not for me to say what the town's charms are. Just like a movie theater, I hope that the people who come here like it.

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"JFF+ INDEPENDENT CINEMA"

https://www.jff.jpf.go.jp/watch/independent-cinema/
Organized by: The Japan Foundation (JF)
Cooperation: Community Cinema Center
Implementation period: December 15, 2022 to June 15, 2023 (6 months)
Distribution area: Worldwide except Japan (some titles are not available in certain regions)
Viewing fee: Free (user registration required to watch)
Subtitles: English, Spanish (some films have Japanese subtitles)

Cinema 5 (Oita City, Oita Prefecture) Recommended Works Director Yasuhiro Yoshida "Tamidachi no Shimauta ~Jufu no Haru~" (2013) [Distribution period: December 15, 2022 - March 15, 2023]
"My Dream is to Be a Cow Doctor" (2014) directed by Yoshiaki Tokita [Streaming period: March 15, 2023 - June 15, 2023]