X Japan documentary film WE ARE X wins at SXSW

X Japan have debuted their award winning music documentary, We Are X at SXSW. Well, exciting news to share, the documentary film won SXSW Film Festival Audience Award for “Excellence In Title Design”, more here.  Check out the trailer here:

More news below:

X JAPAN and ‘WE ARE X’ dominated social media conversation duringSXSW 2016 Music & Film weeks. The group marked the #2 most-used hashtag at SXSW this year: #X JAPAN and #WE ARE X-related tweets received (source: Keyhole and Forbes) just under 11 million impressions throughout the week (Posts: 11,888, Users who Posted: 1,799, Reach: 2,485,559, Impressions: 10,914,757). For a detailed breakdown, read “How POTUS and X JAPAN Dominated Social Media At SXSW” (here).

 

YOSHIKI–songwriter, drummer, classically-trained pianist and the creative force of X JAPAN–performed a special set for the captivated SXSW crowd of movie-goers following the final screening of ‘WE ARE X’ at the Paramount Theatre in Austin on Friday, March 18. YOSHIKI’s classical versions of X JAPAN’s songs with a string quartet live on stage garnered a standing ovation following his performance.Directly after the Paramount screening and performance, YOSHIKI ran to the “Japan Nite” event at the Elysium inAustin and offered another striking live performance for the standing room only crowd (event photo link above and below). Three of the scheduled bands for “Japan Nite” were unable to make it to Austin due to visa issues andYoshiki stepped in to support the long-running SXSW event.

 

‘WE ARE X’was produced by John Battsek of Passion Pictures, producer of two Academy Award-winning documentaries (Searching For SugarMan, One Day In September), and directed by Stephen Kijak (Stones In Exile, Scott Walker: 30^th Century Man). The film wonthe Special Jury Award for “Best Editing”at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival Awards (Jan. 20) in Park City, UT. ‘WE ARE X’–edited by Mako Kamitsuna and John Maringuoin and assisted by June Okada–earned rousing ovations during its six Sundancescreenings throughout film festival.

 

X JAPAN—YOSHIKI (drums/piano/composer), TOSHI (vocals), PATA (guitar),HEATH (bass), SUGIZO (violin/guitar) alongside their fallen brothers HIDE(guitars, 1987-1997) and TAIJI (1986-1992)–are currently laying down tracks in a Los Angeles studio for their as-yet-untitled album, which is due for a worldwide release in late 2016.