SAPPORO SHORT FEST

Tony Rayns is a London-based film-maker, critic and festival curator with a special interest in East Asian cinema. He is a contributing editor of the magazine Sight and Sound and also contributes to Film Comment, CinemScope, Cine 21 and other magazines. His books include Fassbinder, Eiga: 25 Years of Japanese Cinema, Electric Shadows: 45 Years of Chinese Cinema, Jang Sun-Woo and the forthcoming Wong Kar-Wai on Wong Kar-Wai.

He has been a guest teacher at Beijing Film Academy, Shanghai Drama Academy and Korean Academy of Film Arts. He curates East Asian films for the Vancouver and London film festivals, and has been Festival Adviser to the Pusan Film Festival in Korea since its inception. His own films include New Chinese Cinema and The Jang Sun-Woo Variations. He was awarded the Kawakita Prize in 2004 for services to Japanese cinema.

MARY LOU BELLI is an Emmy Award winner producer, writer, and director. She has just fished directing her 7th consecutive season of “Girlfriends” on the CW network as well as the new Web series 3Way, winner of 2 Logo awards.With over 100 episodes to her credit, Mary Lou directed "Living with Fran" starring Fran Drescher, "Misconceptions" starring Jane Leeves, and "Eve" starring hip hop artist Eve, as well as “Charles in Charge," "Major Dad," and “Sister, Sister.” Mary Lou received BET nominations for directing "Girlfriends" and "One on One” as well as a Prism Award for "Girlfriends." After receiving a BA in theatre from Penn State, Mary Lou acted in musical theatre and soaps in New York, followed by a Los Angeles career producing and directing theatre with over 75 play productions to her credit. Among the awards she holds the dearest is her citation from the late Mayor Tom Bradley for her work with abused children. She lectures frequently throughout the United States including many universities such as AFI, NYU, Northwestern, and UConn. She is the co-author of two books: “The Sitcom Career Book.” and "Acting for Young Actors" and is the head of the Education Advisory Committee for 3 Minute Highschool.com. She has been served as judge and guest speaker for three consecutive years for the CSU Media Arts Fest, a judge for the Miss America Outstanding Teen Pageant, and a panelist for Women In Film, the DGA, SAG, and AFTRA. This spring she is a judge for the California Independent Film Festival as well as guest artist at the International Thespian Festival for secondary school theatre where she will give workshops to thousands of teens and high school theatre teachers. She looks forward to her trip to Japan to judge the Sapporo Short Festival in September.

Ulrich Wegenast was born in Stuttgart (Germany) in 1966. He studied History and History of Art at the University of Stuttgart, followed by postgraduate studies in culture and media management at the university of music „Hans Eisler” in Berlin.
Wegenast was a founding member of the Wand 5- association in 1987, which arranges the festival Stuttgarter Filmwinter – Festival for Expanded Media yearly and the architectural- and media congress media-space. Until 2006, Wegenast filled different functions (executive, director, curator...), working at the conception and realization of programmes and exhibitions in the field of experimental films, video- and media arts. From 1993 until 2005, he worked as a programme curator for the International Trickfilm-Festival Stuttgart. Moreover he consulted the Filmfest München, MFG Medien- und Filmgesellschaft Baden-Württemberg, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Goethe Institut and documenta, among others.
In 2002 he was appointed programme leader of the European Kurzfilmbiennale Ludwigsburg. From 2005, he helped to build the department of video and media arts at Freie Kunstakademie Nürtingen. In november 2005 he was appointed director of arts at Film- und Medienfestival GmbH, organizing and holding i.e. the International Trickfilm- Festival Stuttgart and the European Kurzfilmbiennale in Ludwigsburg. Since may 2006 he is a member of the executive board of AG Kurzfilm and a member of the programme advisory board for film at Goethe Institute, taking care especially of experimental and animated film. He furthermore is a member of the Art Foundation Baden-Württemberg in the field of video.
Since 2003 he gives lectures on festival management at Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg. He also lectured film and media art at Hochschule für Gestaltung in Karlsruhe from 2004 until 2007.

As an actress, Tomoko Nakajima has performed a role as younger sister “Hotaru” for 22 years in a mega hit national TV drama “Kita no Kuni kara”. There after, her career was expanded to the movie and the plays. Besides acting, she expresses her uniqueness in poetry reading and writing. She receives high acclaim as one of the talented actress and she is popular among cored people. In recent works, collaborating with Jazz, ethnic music and orchestra, Tomoko reads poetry in a classical play, also challenges to produce a film.

Works

• Films:
• 『FUTARI』(Directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi)
• 『TUGUMI』(Directed by Jun Ichikawa)
• Plays:
• 『Orestes』(Directed by Yukio Ninagawa)
• 『The Glass Menagerie』(Directed by Irina Brook)
• 『Clean Skins』（Directed by Tamiya Kuriyama
• 『Naked』(Directed by David Levaux)

Hisao enter Berklee College of Music in 1978. Throughout college, Hisao pursued his jazz interest by studying with David Liebman,Joe Allard,George Russell. It is a necessary component of his musical life.

Tano-ism :
Music enables the listeners to explore a world of rich artistic imagination and thereby makes them happy, irrespective of where they live, which racial group they come from,and which religion they believe, because it is the universal languageunderstandable to all.That makes me think that those who play music can and should deliverto the world and society.
It means that music originates from love with which a person cares about others. As a way of putting that principle into practice I would concentrate on getting across the meaning and wonder of music to the audience rather than show them how to render a particular piece. I hope to play music looking toward a space where I can contemplate the ways to live and relate to others.

Performance :

• Quincy Jones Produce
• Swiss Montreux Jazz Festival
• Fuji Rock festival
• Earth Day Tokyo
• Salena Jones Japan tour

Collaboration :

• Araki Nobuyoshi （Photographer）
• Kuroda Seitaro（Painter）
• Takeda Souun（Calligrapher）
• Yamamoto Kansai（Designer）　etc.

http://www.tanoshiro.com