By Mark Schilling
"There are no real film industry lobbyists in Japan," says Takashi Nishimura, Deputy Secretary General, of Unijapan Film -- Japan's overseas film promotion body. "Perhaps someday there will be -- the trend is moving in that direction -- but not yet."
One reason, explains Nishimura, is that, until recently, "the film industry and the government had little to do with each other, " with the formerly largely ignoring the latter as a maker of commercial entertainment, not culture products worthy of support with subsidies and grants. "Now the government is more interested in promoting what it calls the contents industry -- and film is part of that," says Nishimura. To aid it in its policy-making, government agencies have called on leading industry figures, such as critic Tadao Sato, producer Masato Hara and theatre owner Etsuko Takano, to serve on advisory panels -- "but they are not lobbyists in the Western sense of the term," says Nishimura.
This does not mean that lobbying does not go on in Japan, but it takes a different form. Instead of hiring lobbyists to visit legislators in their offices, high-ranking officials of industry bodies -- Keidanren being the largest and most influential -- are more likely to meet their government ministry counterparts after hours in exclusive clubs and restaurants to do their real wheeling and dealing. Shadowy fixers -- called kuromaku -- also play a role in smoothing the way for deals. "Japanese often prefer to work behind the curtain," comments Nishimura. "That's probably not going to change anytime soon."
Founded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), UniJapan (formally known as UniJapan Film before its merger with TIFF in April 2005) has been promoting Japanese films abroad since 1957.
Since 2003, with backing from the Agency for Cultural Affairs (Bunka-Cho), UniJapan has been actively promoting Japanese films and supporting Japanese film companies at foreign film festivals and markets, including Cannes, Toronto, Pusan and Berlin. Its biggest contribution is to subsidize subtitling, travel expenses and the setting up of booths and pavilions. Nishimura, who is in charge of UniJapan's day-to-day operations, under chairman Kaoru Yosano, is intimately involved with these and other promotional activities.
For 2004 and 2005 the Agency allocated $890,000 in UniJapan, compared with $700,000 in 2003. UniJapan's total annual budget has also grown, from $550,000 in 2002 to $920,000 in 2003 and $2.7m in 2004.
Neither Nishimura nor Yosano consider themselves lobbyists, nor do they employ any. But as a former minister of METI and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, as well as current chairmanship of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's Policy Research Council, Yosano has formidable clout -- and has used it in the service of UniJapan since becoming chairman in 2000. "Even before I joined UniJapan, they had a plan to supply Japanese companies with booths at foreign film festivals and markets, but they didn't have the budget, so I pitched the idea to METI and other Ministries and was able to get their support," says Yosano. That's lobbying, the Japan way.
