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Head of the Jury

Fujihata Masaki is Japan's leading media artist. Since the early '80s, he has been involved in the production of computer graphics and animation as well as computer-aided sculpture and interactive works and is highly regarded both in Japan and overseas. His work investigates the potential for artistic expression using digital technology and presents various issues relating to communication.
http://www.fujihata.jp/

Jury

With his unique philosophy and methodology, Sato Masahiko is active across numerous fields including audiovisual, animation, graphics, education, brain science and research into expression. Well known among his work is "Expression which values concept" of the Keio University Sato Masahiko Research Center established in 1999 and "Pythagora Switch" on NHK's education channel. His latest work together with Kiriyama Takashi of the same graduate school is called "Arithmetik Garden".
http://www.masahicom.com/
Photo: Takuji Okada

Comment: Film-making where you don’t have to worry (or perhaps where it’s better not to worry) about image quality, budgets or fancy equipment. Which means we can anticipate a form of new communication emerging. Film-making may have become less serious but there’s nowhere to hide if you’re lacking in ideas. That’s scary but also exciting.

Suwa Nobuhiro has been involved with independent film production since he was a student. After graduating, he became an assistant director, then produced documentaries for television and in 1996 released the full-length feature "2/Duo". His impromptu directorial style without a script is highly regarded both within Japan and overseas and he received the International Critics Award at the Cannes Film Festival for his next film "M/OTHER". He participated in the 2006 film "Paris, je t'aime" which brought overwhelming critical acclaim.

Comment: What I want to see is the potential for a film to drill a small hole in the system where at one of a spectrum we have films with grandiose aesthetic sensibilities that are too slick, too privileged and becoming progressively more exclusive, and at the other, a culture of filmmaking inundated with mock democratization that are private and have no social value. Is that at all possible?

From the early 1980s, Jean-Louis Boissier has been active internationally as an artist, researcher and curator. In the '90s, he adopted the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau as the subject of his study of interactivity in art. He is a pioneer in the field of interactive art and has held numerous exhibitions in Japan.

Comment: For these small screens that we take out of our pocket, the circumstances of the reading of the film are just as important as those of its shooting. It is the relationship between these two circumstances that directs the production of films for the mobile and shared screens.

After completing her studies at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris, over the next 20 years she held successive posts at various cultural institutions including the Opéra national de Paris. Within the Vivendi Universal Group, she became general manager for provision of cultural contents and director of the Réunion des musées nationaux. In 2002, she took up the post of director of Forum des images.
Photo: Laurent Edeline

Comment: As the founder of the first Pocket Films Festival in France I am very pleased to see such an initiative taking place in Japan and in partnership with our country.
I am very honoured to be a member of the jury for the upcoming Pocket Films Festival in Japan and I am very confident that the selection of films will be outstanding.