TIFF director Shozo Ichiyama on bridging the gap with Chinese cinema

It’s no exaggeration to call Shozo Ichiyama a guru of Chinese cinema.

In addition to his role as programming director of the Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF), he has produced almost all of the features by Jia Zhangke, one of China’s leading contemporary filmmakers, since 2000 “Platform” (2000). Ichiyama has also worked on titles by independent directors Yang Lina, Wang Qi and Song Fang. His international footprint includes a string of collaborations with acclaimed Taiwanese auteur Hou Hsiao-hsien in the 1990s, notably the iconic “Flowers of Shanghai” (1998).

On a brisk November morning, the 63-year-old cineaste sat down with The Japan Times at TIFF’s headquarters in Tokyo’s Yurakucho neighborhood for a conversation about the past, present and future of Chinese filmmaking. With his memorable mane of white hair and easygoing manner, Ichiyama spoke freely and earnestly about his career and his relationships with Chinese artists.

That same evening, the Competition jury would award TIFF’s best actress prize to Hu Ling for her role in Wang Jiangyong’s “The Night That Binds Us” and the Special Jury Prize to Sun Xun for his mind-bending mixed-media animation “Magic Atlas.” A third film, Qiu Jiongjiong’s “Fuxi: Four Tales of Feasting,” was also a contender in this year’s competition.

Chinese talent is well represented at TIFF nowadays, but this wasn’t always the case. When Ichiyama first began helping out in the early 1990s, he says “there was nobody in the programming department who knew about Asian cinema. … The Asian selection of the festival was very weak.”

Ichiyama had been working in the production department of Shochiku, the studio behind cinematic legends such as Yasujiro Ozu and Kenji Mizoguchi, when his boss dispatched him to TIFF. At first, he simply attended to the visiting overseas guests, but he was soon invited back in a more formal capacity.

Even though Ichiyama says he was no Asian film expert and just a “movie fan,” he began working as the programmer for TIFF’s Asian sidebars in 1992. It was this role that allowed him to meet Hou Hsiao-hsien when “The Puppetmaster” (1993) screened as the opening film in his section.

A long engagement

A native of Yamaguchi Prefecture, Ichiyama had been a student at the University of Tokyo before embarking on a career in the film industry. In the mid-1980s, Chen Kaige’s “The Yellow Earth” (1984) was released in Japanese cinemas and left a deep impression on Ichiyama. 

“I read Nagisa Oshima’s review of the film in the newspaper,” Ichiyama recalls, adding that when he finally saw it, “it was a big surprise” and a “very cinematic and challenging film.”

Around the same period, when a friend was studying abroad at Beijing’s Renmin University, Ichiyama visited China for the first time. He would return frequently in subsequent decades for festivals in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Pingyao, as well as to work on projects with Jia Zhangke.

A graduate of the University of Tokyo, Shozo Ichiyama joined Shochiku in the 1980s and went on to produce many influential works by contemporary Chinese-language filmmakers including Jia Zhangke and Hou Hsiao-hsien. | JOHAN BROOKS

Though Jia’s films have increased in scale over the decades, he also had more modest beginnings as an independent director in the 1990s — perhaps not unlike some of the filmmakers that TIFF has been spotlighting in recent years.

“The Chinese films in TIFF (this year) were very different because all three films were not ‘official,’” Ichiyama says. “The filmmakers are from China, but they were financed by other countries.”

Despite its Shanghai setting, for example, “The Night That Binds Us” is a co-production between France and Hong Kong, while “Magic Atlas” was made through a Singaporean animation studio. “Fuxi” drew on funding from a range of Middle Eastern and East Asian partners.

“Usually, every year we receive entries from commercial Chinese films that were released in January or February, so they try to show the film in Tokyo as a world premiere,” Ichiyama says. “But this year, this kind of film was not submitted — maybe it’s because of the political situation between China and Japan. … So we were somewhat forced to show independent films in the main Competition, but I liked those three films very much, and it didn’t matter if they didn’t get (official) permission.”

Ichiyama praises “The Night That Binds Us” for being “a realistic film with very strong direction,” especially as Wang’s feature-length debut. He notes that “Magic Atlas” and “Fuxi,” both abstract and visually striking films, were made by artists. 

“I like this kind of experimental film very much,” Ichiyama says, going on to muse that such films have the power to “encourage artists working in China.”

Nurturing the next generation

Ichiyama says the ongoing freeze in Sino-Japanese relations, which has had a significant impact across the cultural domain, is “a bad thing for both the Chinese and Japanese film industries.” With major titles like “Chiikawa” unable to screen officially in China, the economic losses have been undoubtedly significant.

“While political issues between Japan and China are ever-present, there are people in China who enjoy Japanese films and animation, just as there are audiences in Japan who are interested in Chinese cinema,” he says. “It is important to bridge the divide between nations through this kind of cultural exchange, and I believe that movies play a significant role in doing so.”

Besides his work as a film programmer, Ichiyama began teaching at Tokyo University of the Arts (Geidai) in 2013 and has been a professor at the Graduate School of Film and New Media since 2024. In this capacity, he supervises student productions, reading scripts and offering advice. The producing course enrolls a relatively small cohort of students, including several from China.

In recent years, TIFF has screened the works of emerging Chinese directors who graduated from Geidai, such as Yang Liping (“Ashes”) and Cai Ronglin (“Miracle Summer”). Both Yang and Cai have made films set in Japan, with all-Japanese or majority-Japanese casts.

Ichiyama says the students have told him that “in China, it’s not easy to make independent films. … It’s very difficult to finance.” And, of course, there’s the matter of censorship. Sometimes, getting approval for a completed film is a feat in itself. As Ichiyama puts it, “(The director) must change many things in order to bypass censorship. That’s why they try to explore careers in other countries.”

When he first started at Geidai, “many Chinese students graduated and returned to their home country to work in Chinese film studios or film companies. But recently, many have decided to stay in Japan. They’re probably trying to explore making the films that they want to make.”

In 1998, Ichiyama stepped away from TIFF to join Office Kitano, the production company led by auteur Takeshi Kitano, and founded Tokyo Filmex, a smaller-scale festival focused on independent and arthouse cinema. When he returned to lead TIFF in 2021, creating a forum for film education was one of his priorities.

“My first mission is to select good films,” he says, “but I insisted that (TIFF) should do something different, like educational programs or programs that support filmmaking. … This kind of thing has been lacking for a long time.”

He points to the Busan International Film Festival’s Asian Film Academy as an example of an initiative that has had a lasting impact on filmmakers from around the region. The Asian Students’ Film Conference, launched in 2025, is TIFF’s version of a program to nurture emerging talent.

“For the film industry to thrive in the long term,” he says, “there needs to be a variety of films beyond just commercial ones.” 

In China, the system of institutional funding to help smaller films reach the festival circuit isn’t as robust as it is in other countries. Censorship, too, remains a concern.

“While it’s unlikely that censorship will disappear overnight, easing these standards — thereby allowing a broader range of films to be shown domestically — is essential for the continued development of Chinese cinema,” Ichiyama says.

For a growing number of emerging Chinese filmmakers, Tokyo offers an alternative place to develop their work and find an audience. Ichiyama, meanwhile, is always looking for the next generation of talent.