Japanese director Hirokazu Koreeda has already tasted success at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival. His film Nobody Knows, a study of four children living alone in a Tokyo apartment was selected for the competition for the 2004 edition of the French festival. Its 14-year-old star Yuya Yagira became the first Japanese to win the Best Actor award that year.

Now Koreeda will have another shot at the Palme d’Or when the cinema elite descend on the resort town May 15-26. His just-completed feature Like Father, Like Son [pictured] stars author/actor Lily Franky as a loving father who finds the boy he has raised for six years is not his biological son, due to a hospital mix-up. It is one of 19 films in the “official selection” program.

Fellow Japanese director Takashi Miike is heading to France with his thriller Shield of Straw. Other high profile entries in the competition include Roman Polanski’s Venus in Furs, Steven Soderbergh’s Behind the Candelabra on the entertainer Liberace, and the Coen Brothers’ folksinger drama Inside Llewyn Davis.

After having been invited countless times, Steven Spielberg finally cleared up his schedule enough to serve as this year’s jury head. “My admiration for the steadfast mission of the festival to champion the international language of movies is second to none,” the Lincoln director said.

Like Father, Like Son will open in Japan on Oct 5.

Sometimes a movie begins life not in a studio executive’s office, but in the family. That was the case when Dustin Hoffman [pictured] directed his first film after nearly half a century as an acclaimed actor.

“I have been with my wife for 36 years, and she has seen me start many scripts and not finish. This time she said ‘if you don’t make this movie I’m going to leave you,’ Hoffman recalled during a recent visit to Tokyo. “I said, ‘If I make it and it is not a hit, I am leaving you,’” the two time Oscar-winner joked.

The result of this challenge from his wife is Quartet, set in a British home for retired musicians. “We see older people, but we think they are far away from our reality. But then we wake up one morning and we are one,” said the filmmaker, who gave his age as “75 and a half”. Hoffman praised his “heroic” cast, including Maggie Smith, who continues to work at the age of 78 despite problems with her eyesight and the need of a cane.

He also hired musicians in their 70s and 80s for bit parts, explaining that many of them had not had work offers in 20 or 30 years. “How many of you have a parent or a grandparent who have been told, ‘You are too old. We are firing you.’?” Hoffman asked while speaking of an “older people revolution.” “This is a film set in a retirement home, but the people refuse to retire.”

Quartet is currently screening at Bunkamura’s Le Cinema, 2-24-1 Dogenzaka, Shibuya-ku; www.bunkamura.co.jp

Sometimes it takes an outsider to shine a light on a country’s unique social phenomenon. Such is the case with the documentary Saving 10,000: Winning the War on Suicide in Japan. Irishman Rene Duignan decided to tackle the taboo subject during free time from his day jobs as a professor and an economist for the Delegation of the European Union to Japan.

In the opening scenes of the one-hour doc, he marvels that books teaching readers methods of killing themselves sell millions of copies, but people are reluctant to talk about Japan’s high suicide rate—twice that of the US and twelve times that of the Philippines. In an effort to find out why, the part-time filmmaker spent three years interviewing experts working on the front lines fighting suicide, from police officers to a Buddhist monk.

The resulting work has garnered attention far beyond Duignan’s dreams. Earlier this year, a special screening was held for members of the Japanese Diet, along with speeches by prominent politicians. “I gave away 140 DVDs that day,” he recalls, “because what better place can you give them away?” A recent screening at the EU Delegation in Tokyo was followed by expert speeches on the best prevention practices abroad. The interest politicians have already taken in the film is unprecedented and has the potential to lead to new policies. But as Duignan reflects in the film, “it is not up to the government to save us. Sometimes all you need to save someone’s life is to take the time to listen.”

Saving 10,000 can be viewed for free online at www.saving10000.com

Crowdfunding has been the strategy of choice for indie projects for a few years now. Sites such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo have helped raise funds for everything from iPhone accessories to a museum commemorating inventor Nicola Tesla. But 2013 will go down as the year when social media hat-passing really hit the big time.

In February, the short film Inocente [pictured] became the first Kickstarter baby to take home an Academy Award. Two other nominees on Oscar night were also funded by individuals. The winning documentary, which follows a formerly homeless teenager preparing for her first art show, was made with $52,527 from 294 backers. The online efforts did more than just cover expenses. “It really helped galvanize a community,” co-director Seth Fine told Mashable backstage at the ceremony.

But the scale of crowdfunding is not necessarily limited to small projects. This month, Rob Thomas, creator of the teenage detective series Veronica Mars, turned to the fans of the show that was canceled five years ago in the hope of reviving it as a feature film. The campaign, promising donors everything from a PDF of the script to a speaking role in the film, set a Kickstarter record by hitting the $1 million mark in under 12 hours. On the second day of the drive Warner Brothers agreed to distribute the film, and indie film funding crossed with the mainstream. “It was one of the most remarkable days of my life,” Thomas told the Los Angeles Times.

The fifth Okinawa Movie Festival kicked off its week of events on Saturday in a Emerald Castle-like conference center just outside the capital Naha. The entertaining red-carpet process saw various Japanese comics appear to varying degrees of excitement among the amassed crowd of mostly teenagers, and a bewildering array of costumed characters advertising sponsors. In fact, the ratio of characters to real people was about even. Some were in bloated unwieldy suits and had to be led shuffling along like wounded aliens paraded in front of their baying captors. When the sub-tropical sun hid behind cloud cover everyone felt more comfortable.

The big stars were Atsuko Maeda of former AKB fame (aka Acchan; pictured), a bunch of girls from Osaka offshoot NMB48, Hollywood director and festival judge Joel Schumacher (Batman Forever; The Lost Boys)—with prolific anime star Crayon Shin-chan a big hit among the fictional selection.

Schumacher, attendee of many a fest in his time, told reporters the festival was one of the most community-minded he’d witnessed. The conference center buzzes with a community vibe; all events are completely free, including movies on the big screens. A market place of stalls and food court meant the area swarmed with locals during the whole weekend—couples, families, groups of friends. It helped that the cloudy weather dissuaded people from the beach.

The festival was created by Yoshimoto, a massive management agency owned by the billion-dollar Koiraku pachinko giant. One source close to the top rung estimated the festival’s cost at around US$9 million, with $1 million of that used to bring the world’s largest outdoor portable screen from Locarno in Switzerland. The screen was enormous, of quite incredible resolution, and could flip over in case of rain. But a pricy choice nonetheless. Funds also came from the Okinawa Prefectural government, keen to enhance Naha’s role as a cultural hub.

For centuries the Ryukyu Kingdom ruled Okinawa, managing to foster trade with its powerful neighbors of Japan and China, as well as with Taiwan and Korea, while maintaining its independence. One of the movie fest’s aims is to foster cinematic trade between its Asian neigbors. To that end there is a Content Bazaar where producers, sales agents, and distributors from all over the region can meet to discuss business.

The program boasted a couple of big international hits, most notably Beasts of the Southern Wild, and the Asia premiere of Ring director Hideo Nakata’s new offering The Complex (Kuroyuri Danchi), with aformentioned AKB graduate Acchan (trailer here).

But perhaps most interestingly, the fifth festival has a new feature, the Creative Factory, headed up by superproducer Kazuyoshi Okuyama. Okuyama told Metropolis that this program—which awards applicants in the creative arts with support in producing their project over the next year—is for him the main target of the festival. “Nurturing new talent is something other festivals talk about,” he said, “but we are trying to make that a reality.”

Okuyama talked about how the breakdown of the studio system in Japan has led to stagnation. New talents are unable to get into the industry unless they go through the massive companies that control it. Is it not possible to change the system? “I tried it in the past but I failed,” Okuyama said. “Now I’ve realized you have to change the system from inside.” He laughed ruefully. “Maybe I’ve just got older.”

Okuyama hopes that the winners of this year’s Creative Factory can achieve domestic success and distribution deals in the future, making the Okinawa Movie Festival’s name as a crucible for new talent. It hasn’t been done yet, he admitted. But with the festival getting bigger every year, it seems to be going in the right direction.