"JFF+ INDEPENDENT CINEMA," a special streaming project organized by the Japan Foundation, focuses on the "mini-theaters" that have supported Japan's film culture, and distributes Japanese films selected by managers of mini-theaters around Japan to overseas audiences free of charge.
Mini-theaters are small movie theaters that are run independently of major movie companies. In 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, approximately 70% of the 1,292 films released in Japan were screened at mini-theaters across the country, making them a valuable place where each and every audience member can encounter a wide variety of films. In this article, we will be introducing the history and significance of mini-theaters in Japan.

Text: Tamaki Tsuchida Edited by: The Japan Foundation

The COVID-19 pandemic and movie theaters

It has already been two and a half years since the spread of the COVID-19 virus in Japan became serious from February to March 2020, affecting cultural and artistic activities. During this time, the Japanese film industry was hit hard, with cinema box office revenues in 2020 falling 45% from the previous year to 143.2 billion yen. Box office revenues in 2021 increased slightly to 161.9 billion yen, but are still far from the market size of 261.1 billion yen in 2019, the highest box office revenue since 2000. While cinemas were forced to accept requests to close cinemas, shortened hours, and restrictions on the number of seats, one of the reasons for this is thought to be that people, especially the elderly, stayed away from cinemas due to requests to refrain from going out. Even now, with the state of emergency lifted and daily life returning to normal, the number of cinema-goers is still in the process of recovering, just like in other countries.

In particular, small movie theaters such as mini-theaters and art house theaters that show low-budget films, young independent films, and older works have been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic and are now in financial difficulty. In response to this crisis, a group of volunteers in the film industry launched the "SAVE the CINEMA" project in April 2020, collecting over 90,000 signatures on a petition calling for emergency support for mini-theaters and submitting it to the government and relevant ministries. In addition, film directors Koji Fukada and Ryusuke Hamaguchi established the "Mini Theater Aid Fund," which attracted about 30,000 supporters through crowdfunding, raising 330 million yen in support within a month, and distributing about 3 million yen to 118 theaters. Around the same time, actors Arata Iura, Takumi Saito, and Makiko Watanabe launched the "Mini Theater Park," which is working to support mini-theaters across the country.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the term "mini-theater" and the existence of movie theaters have attracted attention as they have faced a crisis of survival, but it can be said that this has ultimately made two things clear. First, it has brought to light the fragility of the management base of small movie theaters. Second, it has made people aware for the first time of the need for constant public support to support movie theaters and the need for specialized institutions to carry this out. It also makes visible the desire of people who do not want to lose the ability to watch movies in movie theaters. In particular, the fact that support for mini-theaters and art house theaters was far greater than expected has made us realize once again the significance of the existence of these theaters.

Diversity ensured by mini-theaters

In the first place, "mini-theater" is a Japanese-English word that refers to a movie theater that is managed independently without the direct influence of major movie production and distribution companies, and that programs films that are released in one or several theaters, or old films and new films that have finished being shown in roadshows. Because they often screen works that excel in artistic quality or old films, they are sometimes used indistinguishably from the term "masterpiece theaters," and in recent years, they are sometimes used as a general term for "movie theaters other than cinema complexes." In addition, because there is a strong tendency to "plan theater performances and film screenings with avant-garde themes" (Kojien), the words "art theater" and "art house" have become common, just like in English. Mini-theaters select films to show based on their own criteria, so tastes and characteristics emerge depending on the theater. For this reason, it is not uncommon for the theater itself to have a loyal fan base.

According to the "Film Screening Activity Yearbook 2021" (published by the Community Cinema Center General Incorporated Association), there are currently 3,687 screens in Japan, of which 88%, or 3,249 screens, are cinema complexes (cinemas with 5 or more screens in the same facility). Other cinemas account for 438 screens, or about 12% of the total, and mini-theaters account for 240 of those, which is only about 6.5% of the total. However, in terms of the number of cinemas, out of the 596 cinemas in the country, 360 are cinema complexes and 236 are other. Of these, 136 are mini-theaters. In terms of the size of the facilities, theaters were once generally considered to have 300 seats or less, but today they range from 50 seats to around 200 seats, which is not necessarily "small" when compared to the number of seats per screen in a cinema complex.

According to a survey by the Community Cinema Center, of the 1,292 films released in Japan in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic, about 70% were screened at mini-theaters, and 518 films (about 40%) were screened only at mini-theaters. This means that without mini-theaters, about half of the films would lose their screening venues. In other words, it is the activities of these cinemas that ensure the diversity of films in Japan. In other countries, there are organizations that promote film screenings, such as France's "CNC," Korea's "KOFIC," and Germany's "FFA," and they often have systems in place to subsidize arthouse and independent cinemas like Japan's mini-theaters. However, a case like Japan, where more than 100 mini-theaters exist not only in large cities but also in small and medium-sized cities with almost no public support, is quite exceptional.

Mini-theaters as a crossroads of society and culture

The history of mini-theaters in Japan is the diversity of films, in the sense mentioned above. Its origins can be traced back to cinemas that accepted films distributed by the Art Theatre Guild of Japan (ATG), a distribution company jointly established in 1961 by Toho, Toho Towa, Sanwa Kogyo, and others. Cinemas such as Nichgeki Bunka and Shinjuku Bunka in Tokyo can be considered pioneers of this movement. Influenced by the art theater movement in Europe and the United States in the 1950s, ATG was founded as the Japan Art Theater, which was formed by Kawakita Kashiko of Towa Films, and was established as a distribution company with the aim of screening foreign films that were difficult to distribute commercially, as mentioned above. Films were distributed independently of major companies, with about 10 cinemas in major cities such as Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, and Kobe as mini-chains, focusing on European films such as "Wild Strawberries" and "Joanna the Nun." From 1967, ATG began producing films in collaboration with independent production companies, and released many avant-garde and ambitious works such as Funeral Procession of Roses and Murder of Youth, including works by Oshima Nagisa, Shinoda Masahiro, and Yoshida Yoshishige, who had left major production companies to continue making films. They helped create a counterculture in the history of Japanese cinema in the 1960s and 1970s.

Later, Etsuko Takano and Kashiko Kawakita started the "Equipe de Cinema" project based at the Iwanami Hall (1968-2022), which introduced many films from Western countries that had not been shown in Japan before, including Indian films such as Satyajit Ray's "Song of the Earth" (1955), as well as films from countries that had not been shown in Japan in the form of single-theater screenings. The number of films screened totals 274 from 66 countries and regions. At the Iwanami Hall, auteur films such as "Portrait of a Family" (1974) and "Record of a Traveling Entertainer" (1975) were successfully released through the distribution of France Film Company and Toho Towa, and "The Three Sisters of the Song Family" (1997) and "The Whale of August" (1987) were long-running hits that lasted 31 weeks.

In the 1970s, the movement to move away from large, mass-attendance cinemas had a strong social "movement" aspect, linked to the artistic desire of film lovers and the political will to rebel against commercialism. In the 1980s, however, the emphasis shifted to "show business," and many mini-theaters opened, mainly in large cities, in an attempt to broaden the previously limited range of film audiences.

Cinema Square Tokyu (1981-2014), which opened in Shinjuku in 1981, screened a selection of unique films that had previously been passed over for screening, and succeeded in drawing audiences' attention not only to fans of individual films, but also to the cinema itself, which programs them. It also attracted attention for installing expensive seating, and had a policy of a complete turnover system with no standing room, no entry during the screening, and no food allowed inside. Following this success, various theater companies began operating mini-theaters, and movie theaters such as Eurospace (1982-), Cine Vivant Roppongi (1983-1999), Cine Saison Shibuya (1985-2011), Cinema Rise Shibuya (1986-2016), Chanter Cine (1987-), and Le Cinema (1989-) were born. In particular, films such as Maurice (1986), Wings of Desire (1988), and Cinema Paradiso (1989) attracted female and younger audiences, and the audience base of independent theaters expanded beyond those seeking auteur films.

Then, with the spread of rental videos, the number of small distribution companies increased and many unique works were supplied, and mini-theaters reached maturity in the 1990s. Another characteristic of this period is that movie theaters, such as Cinema Rise Shibuya, functioned as information dissemination centers. Movies such as "Les Amants du Pont-Neuf" (1991), "Trainspotting" (1996), and "Amelie" (2001) strongly linked with fashion and music and led the "culture" of young people.

Regional differences in movie theaters

Since 2010, as the wave of digitalization hit the film industry, many cinemas have been forced to close due to issues such as the introduction of digital projection equipment and a lack of successors. Many of these cinemas were existing theaters in regional cities that were once directly or affiliated with major film production and distribution companies, in stark contrast to the fact that cinema complexes have increased by 42 theaters and 466 screens in the decade leading up to 2021. On the other hand, mini-theaters, including art house theaters, have increased by about 5 theaters and 30 screens. Examples include Cinema Maneko (2021) in Ome City, Tokyo, Ebisu Cinema (2021) in Tamba City, Hyogo Prefecture, and Onozawa Cinema (2022) in Masuda City, Shimane Prefecture.

In this situation, the significance of mini-theaters in ensuring "film diversity" in their regions is becoming increasingly important. Comparing the population per screen with other countries, in 2020, Japan had 34,241 people per screen, while South Korea had 17,190, France had 10,629, and the United States had 9,013. In Japan, more people flock to one screen, and it can be seen that accessibility to movie theaters is the lowest compared to the aforementioned countries, except in large cities. While cinema complexes provide screens intensively for the few hit films, there is a growing tendency for small and medium-sized films that are difficult to sell to flow in large numbers to mini-theaters. This is causing the management of mini-theaters to become exhausted, but it plays a very large role in connecting people equally to films in the local community and forming a cultural infrastructure.

A mini-theater building the next generation

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused movie theaters to see a significant decline in attendance and box office revenue, but while the older demographic that used to make up the core of mini-theaters has yet to return to cinemas, efforts are being made to attract younger audiences. In a project titled "Introduction to Contemporary Art House: Seven Nights of Neoclassicism," held from January to February 2021, classic works that are difficult to screen alone today, such as Victor Erice's "The Beehive," Vitaly Kanevsky's "Stay, Die, Live!," and Freddy M. Murer's "Bonfire in the Mountains," were screened for seven consecutive nights, and various young film directors and screenwriters talked about the works they had selected. For them, mini-theaters are a space that allowed them to encounter films as audience members, and also a "place of training." Nowadays, it is extremely rare for a filmmaker to have their debut work screened at a cinema complex. Many young film directors release their independent works at small cinemas or film festivals, and by gaining attention they are able to scale up their production budgets.

What is noteworthy is that this project was held simultaneously at 18 mini-theaters nationwide, and the talks after the screenings were held online, connecting each venue so that questions could be accepted from anywhere. This was a groundbreaking attempt in that it explored the appeal of movie theaters as a "place" while maintaining the individuality of each mini-theater, which was created to differentiate itself. Movie theaters are also spaces where "experiences" intersect. The impact that each work once had on the film directors who appeared in the talk is presented to young audiences as the present-day meaning of the work itself, a rediscovery. Memories of the movies they watched at mini-theaters overlap with others, clash, and are passed on. Movie theaters are themselves a place of diversity and a place to disseminate culture, and at the same time, they have an "educational" function that connects the past, present, and future through watching. A system that will sustainably support future film culture is needed. Now is the time to seriously discuss how to provide public support to movie theaters, especially mini-theaters.

"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)