Critics lament the decline and fall of the Japanese film industry

Although Shohei Imamura had not made a movie since 2002, and had largely concerned himself with heading the Japan Academy of Moving Images, which he'd set up to groom future generations of film directors, his death on May 30 in Tokyo still leaves a gaping hole in Japan's film industry.

Imamura twice won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, the only Japanese director to do so, and one of just four directors ever to achieve the feat. Yet at this year's festival, Japanese directors were conspicuous only by their absence.

The only Japanese names associated with the leading competing films were actors Rinko Kikuchi and Koji Yakusho, who starred alongside Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett in Alejandro Gonzalez I?arritu's Babel.

It was a sharp plunge from 2005, when Masahiro Kobayashi's Bashing was in the running for the Palme d'Or, Shinji Aoyama's Eli, Eli, Lema Sabachthani featured in the Un Certain Regard category and Seijun Suzuki's Princess Raccoon was received warmly when shown out of competition. There were seven Japanese productions in all at Cannes last year, a level Japanese directors had maintained over the previous decade - until this year.

'It's very disappointing,' says Azusa Soya, of Japan's national film promotion organisation, UniJapan. 'We're not sure why Japan has done so poorly this year, although it appears as if the selections had a far more European focus.

'It could well be this year's fashion or the thought that the festival should turn back to being a European venue for European films. There is also the trend among directors here to focus more on Berlin. They look at Cannes and think it's too big and too European, but Berlin is much easier and cheaper, but it's still very well organised.

'That appeals to younger directors, and we're also beginning to see more interest in Rotterdam because of its Asian focus,' Soya says.