pictures dept.

Press Release

April 19, 2011 18:00 JST – TOKYO

GUILTY OF ROMANCE by SION SONO in DIRECTOR’S FORTNIGHT

HAYAMA BEACH based pictures dept. is proud to announce that our sales title GUILTY OF ROMANCE, (from the same producer as COLD FISH), has been officially invited to the Director’s Fortnight in　the upcoming Cannes Film Festival. The film has been acquired all rights by the German based worldwide sales agency Films Boutique. Excluded are the Japanese distribution rights, which remain with Nikkatsu, the main producer of the film.

pictures dept. owner Yuko Shiomaki has teamed up with Mizue Kunizane, a long-standing talent agent from Dongyu Club, to develop two new Sion Sono projects. These are: THE BLOOD OF WOLVES, Sono’s first samurai action drama starring Tak Sakaguchi, and a self-remake project of his internationally acclaimed work, which will also be unveiled during Cannes.

Comments from the director, Sion Sono

In this film, I depicted my love, respect, and fear towards women. As a result, I have no choice but to conftront the vulgar, contemptible feelings within my heart.  I would say my films are viewed in Japan as being extremely unorthodox and rather extremely eccentric. However, my early works were received positively by the Berlin Film Festival, so I feel that perhaps the best audiences for my films aren’t in Japan but in Europe, where people have been far more accepting. In this perspective, I am looking forward to hear the reaction at Cannes.
 

About Sion Sono

Born in 1961, Sion Sono first became noticed as a poet when he started publishing experimental poetry in 1978, at the age of 17. 　He dropped out of university to make 8mm films. His debut film, a 30 min short called I AM SION SONO! played at the PIA Film Festival in 1985. It consisted of him reading his poetry onscreen. In 1987 he competed in the festival with A MAN’S HANAMICHI and won the Grand Prize. In 1990 he debuted his first feature, BICYCLE SIGHS, which played in numerous festivals around the world. THE ROOM, his 1992 feature won a Special Jury Prize at the Tokyo Sundance Film Festival. In 1997, he staged a guerilla street poetry project, “Tokyo GAGAGA”, which attracted a lot of attention and resulted in a book being published about the project. He gained instant international notoriety for his film SUICIDE CLUB released in 2001. He followed up with a Suicide Club novel, Manga, and film telling the story of several side characters from the original, called NORIKO’S DINNER TABLE. In 2007, his film EXTE played the NYAFF and in many other countries.  LOVE EXPOSURE (released in 2009) won the Agnes B Award at the 9th Tokyo Filmex (2008), awarded by the audiences vote. It was also shown at the 59th Berlin Film Festival, where it won the Caligari Film prize and Overseas Critic League Prize.

Sion Sono as well as being the maverick of the Japanese film industry is highly active in free style youth orientated pleasures, such as horror, poetry and novels. Sono’s film COLD FISH (2010) became an internationally acclaimed masterpiece and it was officially selected for the Venice Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival and Pusan Film Festivals. It was awarded the CASA Asia Best Motion Picture Award at Sitges International Fantastic F.F. 2010. He is currently working his next project, having completed GUILTY OF ROMANCE, which is considered to be the final episode in the “HATE” saga. (Love Exposure, Cold Fish and Guilty of Romance).

Guilty of Romance (恋の罪 Koi no Tsumi)

35mm/Japanese/149 min/colour/2011 Written and directed by Sion Sono

Miki Mizuno/Makoto Togashi/Megumi Kagurazaka Production Company: Nikkatsu

© 2011 Guilty of Romance Film Partners

pictures dept. title page: http://picturesdept.com/sales/gor

FilmsBoutique : http://www.filmsboutique.com/