Tokyo International Film Festival
Source of images: Tokyo International Film Festival official website
TOKYO (The Hollywood Reporter) - The 2000 Tokyo International Film Festival literally went to the dogs Sunday as Mexican director Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu’s Love’s a Bitch, which interweaves three narratives dealing with the relationships between the characters and their dogs, took the Tokyo Grand Prix and best director award at the festival’s closing ceremony.
Inarritu received a ¥10 million ($93,000) cash prize as part of the award.
Edward Norton’s Keeping the Faith received the award for best screenplay. Moussa Maaskri was awarded best actor for his performance in Swiss director Nicolas Wadimoff’s Mondialito and Jennifer Jason Leigh best actress for her role as a free-spirited Lolita in Dane Kristian Levring’s The King Is Alive.
Best artistic contribution awards went to One More Day from Iran and Ritual from Japan. South Korean entry Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors received a special jury prize, and Kazakhstan’s Serik Aprymov received the ¥1 million ($9,300) Asian Film Award.
Before announcing the Tokyo Grand Prix, jury leader Volker Schlondorff said the five judges, including producer Lawrence Bender, director Michael Winterbottom, actress Michele Monique Reis and production manager Teruyo Nogami, unanimously chose Love’s a Bitch for the top prize immediately after its first screening. The film had created a buzz even before its showings and had been tipped to win the top prize early in the festival.
"I’m in a dream," Inarritu exclaimed after receiving his awards. "I’m trying to look at all of your faces and try not to forget this moment."
Inarritu, who worked in radio before getting into filmmaking, spent three years making Love’s a Bitch, which bolsters the recent strength of Latin films. "My purpose for making this film was not so much intellectual, but more visceral, more intimate," he said, referring to his personal attachment to his characters, which he described as a friendship that deepened throughout the film’s production.
Dealing with subjects whose characteristics are mirrored by their canine companions, Inarritu said he sought to develop the film’s internal conflicts by portraying them as external struggles between the subjects and their pets while emphasizing the special bond between humans and dogs. "If the movie was made with birds or cats, it would have been completely different," he said.
After the ceremony, Keeping the Faith writer Stuart Blumberg joked that sometimes life itself can resemble a screenplay. "When I arrived (in Tokyo), I realized I had left my camera at (New York’s Kennedy) airport, and here I am receiving this prize and a digital camera." The cameras were given out along with the awards.
Meanwhile, the retro appeal of old North American television programs was far from lost on Japanese movie audiences as fans waited en masse for a glimpse of Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu, who attended the ceremony to supply a healthy dose of Hollywood glitz and glamour for the Japanese premiere of Charlie’s Angels, the festival’s closing film.
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