Founded by leading arthouse film directors, Ryusuke Hamaguchi (“Happy Hour”, “Asako I & II”) and Koji Fukada (“Harmonium“, “A Girl Missing“), the crowdfunding campaign has successfully raised over 3 million USD to directly support independent movie theaters all across Japan.
On April 7th the Japanese government declared a state of emergency due to the spread of the novel coronavirus. It asked many businesses to close their doors while leaving the scale and timing of monetary compensation unclear. As a result, close to 200 small-scale independent movie theaters, also known as “mini-theaters,” across Japan are in danger of closing forever.
Throughout its 100+ years of film history, there has never been an interruption in arthouse film screenings and foreign film distribution in Japan—even after the collapse of the studio system in the middle of the 20th century. This is due to the existence of “mini-theaters,” throughout the country that have continued to focus on arthouse films. The government's requests to refrain from going outside in response to the spread of COVID-19 and to close movie theaters have directly impacted these small theaters. Many mini-theaters have experienced a 50% or 80% drop in attendance, and some have been recording zero attendance for days.
Various campaigns to support these mini-theaters have been launched and the Mini-Theater AID Fund founded by film directors Ryusuke Hamaguchiand and Koji Fukada is another of these various campaigns aiming to prevent the anticipated closures of small-scale cinemas under the current pandemic. The campaign began on Monday, April 13th on the crowdfunding website, MOTION GALLERY and after only 57 hours since the launch of the campaign it had raised 100 million yen (approximately 1 million USD). By April 28th, the campaign had raised over 200 million yen and by noon on May 14th, it had raised 300 million. However, due to the overwhelming number of people accessing the project page, the deadline was extended by a day to May 15th.
The finally tally came out to be 331,025,487 JPY (over 3 million USD) donated by 29,926 people. If we were to include the number of people who donated through other organizations, the total number of individuals who donated comes out to over 30,920. This record-breaking crowdfunding campaign is one for the history books in both the film industry and the cultural sector as a whole.
The first round of funds was distributed at the end of May, with 1 million yen sent equally to 103 organizations that together, operate 118 mini-theaters. The rest will be split evenly at the end of June. Each organization will receive approximately 3,000,000 yen each by the end.
A Message from the Founders of Mini-Theater AID Fund:
“We are full of gratitude to receive far more support than we ever initially imagined. Despite this, in a country like Japan where public funding and support towards culture and the arts is extremely limited, the amount of support we are offering through this fund is only a fraction of what mini-theaters should be receiving.
One important role that mini-theaters in Japan have accomplished over the years is that they have been introducing countless arthouse films from all over the world to audiences in Japan. Our movement has been about supporting diversity in our film culture and we hope that we can find solidarity with film fans around the world.” – Koji Fukada, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Hideyuki Okamoto, Takeshi Otaka, Satoshi Takata
