It appears that Japanese film is destined for a moment in 2018, in any case, such is the gamble that Art House has taken. The distributor, created by Éric le Bot in 2018, is to focus on all things Japanese. Named as an homage to the Art House project on the Japanese island of Naoshima, home to a plethora of contemporary art as well as art centers and cinemas. According to Art House, their mission is to ‘defend cinema which inscribes itself in a style of modern authorship, that is both ambitious and audacious’.

There are already a number of audacious projects on the program with the film of the year Happy Hour (2017) created by the Japanese director Hamaguchi Ryusuke having recently been released in France. Given that the film is a whopping five hours long, Art House had the bright idea to cut it up into five episodes. Next up is Kurosawa Kiyoshi’s Invasion inspired by a cinematic composition lifted from the series Yocho Sanpo Suru Shinryakusha Gekijoban until now screened exclusively in Japan over a period just two weeks.

Through the exploration of new genres, Japanese filmmakers are no longer content with the simple status of director, pushing the boundaries and becoming multi-faceted creators. It is clear that Japan’s seventh art has a bright future ahead, and Art House is sure to capitalise on that.