JFF+ INDEPENDENT CINEMA, a special streaming program organized by the Japan Foundation, is shining the spotlight on independent theaters, so-called “mini-theaters” that have nurtured the diversity of Japanese cinema culture. The free program aimed at overseas audiences is streaming Japanese films selected by managers of mini-theaters.

Toshiyuki Kajiwara, general manager of Cinema Jack & Betty in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, recommended two films: Yusuke Okuda's "Someone's Flower" (2021) and Yoshifumi Tsubota's "Datte Shaganai Janai" (2019). Both are works by directors with ties to Yokohama.

This time, we visited Cinema Jack & Betty, where Manager Kajiwara Toshiyuki works, and spoke to him about the history of the theater and the current state of Japanese films.

Text: Rie Tsukinaga Photo: Masahiro Nishimura Editing: The Japan Foundation

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Yokohama, which developed as a port city since ancient times, has many historical European-style buildings, including the Red Brick Warehouse, and Yokohama Chinatown has long been known as one of the three largest Chinatowns in Japan. It is about 30 minutes by train from Tokyo. As a historic port city with an exotic atmosphere, it is bustling with tourists on weekends.

Yokohama is also famous as a city of film, having produced many masterpieces. It is well-known that it was the setting for Akira Kurosawa's High and Low (1963). The hugely popular series Dangerous Detective, which began airing as a TV drama in 1986 and was later made into a movie, is also set in Yokohama. The popular Japanese hard-boiled film series Private Detective Hama Mike, starring Masatoshi Nagase, is set in the Kogane-cho area of ​​Yokohama's downtown area, and three movies were made in the 1990s by director Kaizo Hayashi. In 2002, a TV drama version was also produced, with 12 famous film directors, including Shinji Aoyama, Isao Yukisada, and Alex Cox, each directing one episode.

Cinema Jack & Betty is located in Kogane-cho, Yokohama, a "city of movies." This mini-theater, which not only shows independent films but also hosts a variety of unique feature screenings and film festivals, has been popular as the "town's movie theater" for over 30 years.

Kajiwara: In the past, Yokohama was a town with a lot of movie theaters, and I heard that there were more than 30 screens in Yokohama alone. There were also many unique theaters in this area, and across from my house was the Yokohama Nichigeki Theater (closed in 2005), famous for being the setting for the movie series "Private Detective Hama Mike." In Isezakicho, there was the Yokohama New Theater (closed in 2018) and the Kannai Academy (closed in 2004), which was famous as a mini-theater.

Yokohama Cinemarin, which was renovated a few years ago, is also an old theater that has been in operation since 1964. However, with the rise of multiplexes, these unique theaters have been gradually decreasing, and when we took over Jack & Betty in Yokohama around 2007, there were almost no movie theaters screening art films. So, one of our criteria for selecting films to screen was to create a place where art film fans could watch films without having to go to Tokyo. We have always tried to screen a wide range of films, regardless of nationality or genre, so that any customer can come.

What kind of movie theater was Jack & Betty, a long-established movie theater in Koganecho, originally?

Kajiwara: Founded in 1952. At the time, it was a large theater with over 200 seats and was called "Yokohama Meigaza". Mr. Fukuju Hisao, who was known as a famous manager in Yokohama, served as the manager of both "Yokohama Nichigeki" and "Yokohama Meigaza" opposite, and it was affectionately said in the local area that "For Western movies, go to Nichigeki, and for Japanese movies, go to Meigaza."

When the Yokohama Meigaza theater became old, it was rebuilt in 1991 to become Cinema Jack & Betty. The theater's layout changed dramatically, with the entrance on the first floor, a two-screen theater on the second and third floors, and an apartment building above. Apparently, the policy at the time was that one of the two screens would show movies that men would like, such as sword fighting movies, and the other would show romance movies that women would like. Each theater was given a name, "Jack" and "Betty," to symbolize men and women, after the titles of textbooks used in English classes at school at the time.

However, about 14 years after the renovation, the cinema faced a crisis.

Kajiwara"Around 2005, a management company called Chuo Kogyo was dissolved, and all the movie theaters it had been operating in Yokohama and Tokyo closed. Jack & Betty also closed once, but it had only just been rebuilt in 1991, so another company stepped up to manage it and reopened it.

Although Kajiwara was originally from Tokyo, his maternal family home is in Yokohama, and he would often visit the city as a child. It was around this time that he visited Jack & Betty.

Kajiwara: The area around Kogane-cho used to have a dangerous image, but around 2006, Yokohama city started a project to turn Kogane-cho into a new art town. At that time, I started working on town development together with Rio Asai (former assistant manager), who was my classmate at university, and Yoshio Kobayashi, the current assistant manager.

At the time, Kogane-cho was a quiet place, but it still had a somewhat shady atmosphere from the past, and we thought it would be nice to create a new cultural space here. That's when we first met this cinema, and started volunteering to support "Jack & Betty." We wanted to support this old cinema, which symbolizes the city of movies, Yokohama, so we introduced attractive places in the area on our blog, rented a corner of the cinema lobby to hold social gatherings, and planned various things. Then, the management company asked us, "Why don't you just take over the whole cinema?" At first, we thought it was impossible. But if we refused, the cinema might close again soon. That would be too much of a shame, so we decided to take a risk and take over the management of "Jack & Betty" from March 2007.

Thus, Kajiwara and the other three took over the new Jack & Betty. Although they all shared a passion for town development, they had no experience working in a movie theater, so they had to start from scratch.

Kajiwara：At first, everything was a trial and error process. I learned how to operate the projector from scratch from the projectionist, and how to organize the show from the original management company. When thinking about the program, the concept was of course to show small but high-quality films that wouldn't be shown at a multiplex, but I was also conscious of films that would interest as many women as possible.

A holdover from the days of the Yokohama Meigaza, most of the customers at the time were men. When answering the phone, they would ask, "Is this a place where it's okay for a woman to go alone?" Although the atmosphere of the town had changed a lot since then, it still had a strong image of being dangerous. We thought that if they came once, their anxiety would be dispelled, so we created a program with female customers in mind, focusing on films that had been screened at Tokyo mini-theaters known for their large female audiences, such as Iwanami Hall (closing in 2022), Cinema Switch Ginza, and Bunkamura Le Cinema.

Still, things didn't quite get on track, and we had a really tough few years. But things started to change little by little from around 2008. We showed a documentary film called "How to Eat Life" (2005) by director Nikolaus Geyrhalter, and a much larger audience than we expected came. It was a valuable experience that made us realize that if we showed a quality film, the audience would come.

Once people showed up, they would come to other screenings, and the audience gradually grew. A big turning point came in 2010, with the screening of "Caterpillar" directed by Wakamatsu Koji. With lead actress Terashima Shinobu winning the Silver Bear Award for Best Actress at the Berlin International Film Festival, huge numbers of people came every day, and it was the first film to be called a big hit. The number of viewers at that time was the highest record in the history of the film, and it still stands today.

Director Wakamatsu Koji, who started out in pink films and has made a number of anti-establishment films such as Red Army: PFLP Declaration of World War (1971) and The Red Army Faction: The Road to Asama-Sanso (2008), is an important figure for Japanese mini-theaters. Founding Wakamatsu Productions and committed to independent production and distribution throughout his life, Wakamatsu personally contacted theaters when screening his own films and traveled to mini-theaters around the country with his cast members.

Kajiwara: Wakamatsu-san always came to greet us on the first day on stage with the other cast members. There used to be a Chinese restaurant on the first floor of this building, which no longer exists, and I loved having wrap-up parties there and eating my favorite pork trotters.

Come to think of it, it must have been around 2010 that directors started to hold talk shows and stage greetings at mini-theaters across the country. Before that, directors mostly came to theaters in Tokyo, and I don't think it was very common in Yokohama either.

After we took over the management, we tried to ask directors to greet us on stage or give talks when screening independent films, and we have become close friends with many of them through this. In 2010, we held a screening event called "Masters of the Future" that featured 10 young directors. We screened works by directors Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Natsuki Seta, who had just graduated from the Tokyo University of the Arts Graduate School, and director Sho Miyake, who graduated from the Film School of Tokyo and was preparing his first feature film at the time, and had the directors talk every day. At the time, the project was to introduce promising young directors who were not yet well known, but looking back, it was quite an impressive lineup.

Since we're both in Yokohama, I think there are quite a few opportunities to screen films made by students from Tokyo University of the Arts (the Graduate School of Film and New Media was established in Yokohama's Bashamichi district in 2005). Many of the graduate school assignments are shot in Yokohama, and it's encouraging to see new directors coming out of Yokohama one after another.

Many of the directors that Jack and Betty are close to have ties to Yokohama, not just those who graduated from Tokyo University of the Arts.

Kajiwara: Director Okuda Yusuke, whose film "Someone's Flower" was recommended this time, originally entered his film at the Yokohama Happy Mus!C Film Festival, the predecessor of the Yokohama Independent Film Festival, which we co-host with Gachinko Film, and that's how this film was born. Director Okuda is from Yokohama, and has been going to Jack & Betty with his mother since he was a child, so he has a closer connection to this theater than we do. Jack & Betty doesn't appear in the film, but the main setting is a Yokohama housing complex, and the cake shop and yakiniku restaurant (an Oriental restaurant where customers eat meat grilled on a hot plate or grill. Popular in Japan, Korea, etc.) that appear in the film are also located nearby.

Director Yoshifumi Tsubota of "Datte Shaga nai Janai" also lives quite close to Jack & Betty, and we often meet at bars around here. This film is a documentary about the director visiting his uncle who has a developmental disorder and lives in the same Kanagawa prefecture. It is a story about Kanagawa and Yokohama, and I hope that people overseas will also find it interesting as a work that deals with current issues in Japan.

When talking about the current state of independent theaters, the impact of the spread of COVID-19 is inseparable. When a state of emergency was declared nationwide in April 2020, Jack & Betty was forced to close for over a month. Seating restrictions continued even after that, and the number of attendees, which had once dropped, has still not returned to normal.

Meanwhile, a movement to save mini-theaters quickly sprang up. The "Mini-Theater Aid Fund," a project started by volunteers led by film directors Koji Fukada and Ryusuke Hamaguchi, immediately began crowdfunding. The funds raised ultimately exceeded 330 million yen, which were distributed to 118 theaters and 103 organizations.

Kajiwara : I was really grateful at that time. Above all, I was surprised that such a large amount of money was raised from all over the country. There were many other directors who took action in the difficult situation of the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, Director Irie Yu called on people to support each theater by buying their merchandise on Twitter and his blog. In response, we also created original support sets for the theater and sold them on our online shop, and about 2,000 people bought them, which was really encouraging.

Kajiwara: I also started to think that it would be great if theaters across the country could work together to spread the word about the benefits of mini-theaters. One example of this is the local exchange screenings that Yokohama Cinema Network started. We have people who run film festivals and screenings, such as small movie theaters in Yokohama, such as Yokohama Cinemarin and Cinema Novecento, and the Yokohama Football Film Festival, join us, and we apply for city subsidies to carry out our activities.

Two years ago, we held an exchange screening with Cinema Onomichi in Onomichi City, Hiroshima Prefecture, where we screened a movie set in Onomichi in Yokohama and had the manager of Cinema Onomichi give a remote talk, while in Onomichi we screened a movie set in Yokohama and took the stage. Last year, we held an exchange meeting with movie theaters in the Kansai region, located in the mid-western part of the Japanese archipelago. In this way, we hope to learn from each other about how local movie theaters interact with people and the appeal of each theater. Because we are a small theater, we think we need to come together and spread the word.

This was an initiative that began before the COVID-19 pandemic, but in 2019 we also started an exchange event with the Mirim Theater, a movie theater in Incheon, Korea. Incheon and Yokohama have a lot in common as mini-theaters in the same port city, so we were excited to hold an exchange project, and in 2019 we were invited to Korea, where we went to Incheon with our staff and director Okita Shuichi to screen a film and hold a talk. After that, the Mirim Theater came to our house and screened a Korean film and held a talk. It was a really interesting initiative, so it was a shame that it had to be suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Finally, we asked him about the appeal of the city of Yokohama.

Kajiwara：Yokohama has long been known as a movie town, and has been used for filming a wide variety of movies and dramas. I think this is because the atmosphere of an old-fashioned port town remains in many places. Above all, I think the charm of Yokohama is that there are many towns within walking distance, each with a completely different personality. You can walk to Chinatown from here, and there is also Motomachi, which has a retro streetscape and popular cafes, and Yamashita Park, which faces the sea. There is Bashamichi, where the Red Brick Warehouse is located, and Noge and Yoshidacho, which are lined with old, small bars. The area around Koganecho is also home to many people with foreign roots, and it is a neighborhood where you can enjoy both multiculturalism and a mysterious atmosphere. If you come to Yokohama, I hope you will take a stroll around the various places.

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JFF+ INDEPENDENT CINEMA

https://jff.jpf.go.jp/watch/independent-cinema/
Organizer: The Japan Foundation (JF)
In cooperation with: Japan Community Cinema Center
Period: December 15, 2022–June 15, 2023 (6 months)
Streaming areas: Worldwide, excluding Japan (some films not streamed in certain areas)
Fee: Free (user registration is required to watch)
Languages: English, Spanish (some films have Japanese subtitles)

Cinema Jack & Betty (Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture) Recommended Works: Yusuke Okuda's "Someone's Flower" (2021) [Distribution period: December 15, 2022 - March 15, 2023]
Director Yoshifumi Tsubota: "Because It Can't Be Helped" (2019) [Streaming period: March 15th - June 15th, 2023]