A new company called K2 Pictures is starting a fund to support making many movies by well-known Japanese directors like Hirokazu Kore-eda, Takashi Miike, Shunji Iwai, Miwa Nishikawa, and Kazuya Shiraishi.
Muneyuki Kii, an experienced Japanese film producer, is leading this effort. He wants to change how movies are financed in Japan, which usually involves many companies coming together to share the cost and risk of making a movie.
K2 Pictures aims to work more like Hollywood by directly funding films. They plan to create a fund called the “K2P Film Fund I” to support both live-action and animated Japanese movies. They’ve teamed up with famous directors like Kore-eda, Miike, Iwai, Nishikawa, Shiraishi, and anime studio MAPPA.
Kii, along with other leaders like Tetsuro Koda and Fred Schmidt, believes this new approach will make the Japanese film industry more dynamic and attractive to investors, both in Japan and globally.
K2 Pictures is launching officially during the Cannes Film Festival, where they will introduce their plans and some of the directors involved. They hope to bring a fresh wave of creativity and investment to Japanese cinema.