The film industry is at a turning point in many countries around the world. The #MeToo movement against sexual violence went global around 2017. Since then, many individuals have been actively speaking out in an effort to improve the status quo. Also a movement aimed at improving working conditions in the film industry appeared in the midst of this wider trend.

The group action4cinema (a4c) was launched in June 2022 as a Japanese version of France’s Centre National du Cinema et de l’Image Animee (CNC). Its purpose is to create a sustainable and viable future for the Japanese film industry like other countries. We interviewed film director Nobuhiro Suwa, who serves as co-representative of the group for this article. Suwa taps into his extensive experience filming in France to tell us what action4cinema does, the current status of the Japanese film industry, and his hopes for the future.

Text: Yoko Hasada Photo: Keta Tamamura Editing: Kimi Idonuma (CINRA, Inc.)

The sense of urgency during the pandemic also resonated with film director Hirokazu Kore-eda

── You teamed up with directors Takuya Uchiyama, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Yukiko Sode, Miwa Nishikawa, Koji Fukada, and Atsushi Funahashi to create action4cinema in June 2022 with the goal of establishing a Japanese version of the French CNC. Could you tell us a bit more about how the organization came about?

Suwa A lot of things happened leading up to the formation of the group. For me personally, it was the spread of the coronavirus that made me realize how much we needed a mutual support system in the Japanese film industry.

Suwa It was in February 2020, when my film "Voices in the Wind" had just been selected for the 70th Berlin International Film Festival. When I returned home from Berlin, I received a group email from the festival. It showed a symbolic photo of a movie theater whose entrance had been wrapped with caution tape, and informed us that movie theaters around the world were being forced to close in order to prevent the spread of the new virus.

It was a shock. I realized that even the Japanese arthouse cinemas we refer to as “mini theaters” would probably be shuttered too. That was the start of “SAVE the CINEMA”, our petition to save small theaters, which we combined with the “Mini Theater Aid Fund” established at the same time.

── Mini-Theater AID started crowdfunding in the hopes of distributing aid to small theaters across Japan, setting a goal of raising 100 million yen.

Suwa Even I had my doubts as to whether we’d be able to hit that number. But when all was said and done, we actually ended up collecting more than 330 million yen. And on the heels of that success, we also got over 90,000 signatures from people declaring how important they felt the mini theaters were. These actions spread to the music and stage industry, which eventually inspired the government to issue urgent support measures for culture and the arts. We saw the potential for a single movement to start social trends emerge right before our eyes.

That said, the Mini-Theater AID project was only meant to provide emergency support. In the long run, we would not be able to weather the current crisis without changing the underlying structure of the film industry itself. I learned that my co-representative at action4cinema, Hirokazu Kore-eda, was thinking along those same lines.

The pandemic brought all kinds of issues to light even beyond the cinema. We figured that it was the perfect time to take action given that better working conditions were on everybody’s mind already, so we started reaching out to other directors.

Improving working conditions and education to balance life and film

──　Action4cinema has four stated goals, which it sees as essential to supporting the Japanese film industry: maintaining good working conditions, educational support, filmmaking support, and distribution support. Could you describe more specifically what you are trying to achieve in these areas?

Suwa Let’s start with maintaining good working conditions. The way things are now in Japan, filming starts early in the morning and continues until late at night. On some sets, people won’t get a day off for dozens of days.

On the other hand, in France–where I’ve had the opportunity to make several films–filming is restricted to eight hours per day. You also have to take a day off after five days of filming. Sunday is the Sabbath, so that typically means two days off every week. Seeing people go back to their families and relaxing on Sundays after filming has finished, I sighed in admiration at their ability to make films while maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

Suwa It is probably hard to implement the exact same system as French in the Japanese film industry. But we can start with optimizing easier working conditions on women and other groups, and backing efforts to end harassment.

── It seems that the younger generation is becoming increasingly concerned with working conditions as well.

Suwa I teach at Tokyo University of the Arts, and have noticed the same thing. Of course, we have to improve current working conditions, but I think we also have to educate students about harassment. I heard that the Japan Institute of the Moving Image started by holding harassment prevention training for faculty.

── That should help support staff training as well.

Suwa I would think so. The biggest problem Japanese cinema facing is the shortage of crewmembers. You can’t attract exceptional talent if you don’t offer them the working conditions they’re looking for. That’s why we have to start by putting those conditions in place.

And we can’t talk about education without mentioning the need to educate viewers as well. In France, more and more artistic films by luminaries like Andrei Tarkovsky and Jean Luc Godard have been shown as part of educational programs targeting kids from ages six to nineteen. Rather than just giving up because of the concern that children won’t understand what they watch, there seems to be widespread consensus that the shock itself is an opportunity for them to really encounter art.

Growing up with that kind of education, it seems that more people go to theaters in France than in Japan. Even looking at the stats from the Japan Community Cinema Center, you find that Japanese people watch an average of only1.3 films a year in theaters, while in France the average is above three films. We have to start thinking about how we want to educate the kids who will be our film audiences ten years from now.

Film diversity will collapse without protections

── Could you talk about support for filmmaking? Materials from an action4cinema press conference compared the situation of support organizations for the film industry in Japan to that of eight other countries. Looking at the number of films made in each country in 2019, Japan shows 689–second only to America.

Suwa I think the diversity of Japanese cinema is one of its greatest strengths. There aren’t that many countries that have made the variety of films that Japan has. But we have to be careful that despite the number of Japanese films made annually, government agencies only provided around 8 billion yen in 2019.

France, for example, provided 41 billion yen in support for 300 films that same year. Just this simple comparison reveals how low staffing and filmmaking budgets are for most Japanese films. The situation of somehow managing to make films under harsh conditions has normalized.

── It seems like the amount of available subsidies would impact the film industry beyond the set as well.

Suwa When you see the same thing happening to theaters as well, you realize that there is also a need for distribution support.

Independent film houses–in other words, the “mini theaters” not directly influenced by major movie corporations–made up just six percent of total screenings in Japan in 2021. It’s this handful of small theaters that ensure independent and artistic films make it to the screen. At the same time, you can imagine how difficult it is for independent films to turn a profit.

── It’s easier for theaters to make money when they show films expected to draw a big audience, but it seems like that would end up stifling cinematic diversity.

Suwa Exactly. Other countries are taking specific measures to address this issue. In South Korea, for example, the Korean Film Council (KOFIC) treats films that tackle important themes (such as politics or gender) or have high artistic merit as “diversity films,” and officially pledges to support them.

France also has a system where theaters receive points for screening films designated as “diversity films”, and subsidies are given according to the points. We need to think about supporting theaters and other aspects of distribution considering that film diversity will collapse without systematic protections without these kinds of systematic protections.

Pave the way with discussion and consideration, not opposition nor fragmentation

── How to secure financial resources seems like a major issue when it comes to support activities. Action4cinema points to France’s mutual assistance system for films, the Centre National du Cinema et de l’Image Animee (CNC), as a role model.

Suwa When comparing different systems across countries, I realized that Japan also needs an organization dedicated to film that would oversee the scattered forms of assistance out there. Whether it’s Germany, the UK, or elsewhere, each country has its own type of organization. But the French CNC is a particularly well-designed system.

── The CNC collects a portion of service revenue such as from box office sales and streaming services. It supports a broad range of activities from planning and production to distribution, overseas promotion, and archiving.

Suwa The CNC takes 9% of box office revenue. If we could secure even 1% of those funds in Japan, we’d manage to create a budget in the billions of yen–which in turn would allow us to financially support film-related work. And I think the first step in getting there is for us in the film industry to lead the charge.

If we talk about creating a fund using a portion of box office receipts and other service revenue, people may misunderstand this as an effort to use the money being made by entertainment films to fund independent films. But if we can actually replicate the CNC system, we’ll have a mechanism that returns profit to works that achieve great success.

Our goal is not to set up a system that divides the industry into blockbusters and independent films. By putting the funding in place, not only can we ensure cinematic diversity, but also the sustainability and vitality of the entire film industry.

── As diehard film fans, we’re wondering what we can personally do to support these efforts.

Suwa Good question. If you want to speak out against something, believe in positive change and share your opinions or talk with your friends. I’m convinced that individual opinions do shift social tides eventually, and that they can drive change in the film industry and government as well.

But it’s also OK if you do nothing. If you’re in a tough situation right now, for example, the first thing you’ve got to do is take care of yourself. You’re likely to face backlash if you speak up, so I want you to protect yourself first.

── Finally, we’d like to ask you about action4cinema’s hopes for the future.

Suwa We’re not looking to pick a fight with anyone. If we just set out to win, we’ll be left with nothing but bad blood. Improving the film industry isn’t about antagonism, it’s about coming together to have tough conversations and think carefully about the issues. In this process, we want to break new ground.

If we don’t come up with any solutions now, these problems would be doomed to fade into the background again. We want to act on behalf of the industry as a whole, refusing to give up on securing the funding we need, maintaining good working conditions, and overcoming many other challenges.