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SHOOTING THE SUN - 'Nippon Connection On Tour' Retrospective 2007
Japanese Art-House Film from the 60s to today
Sparks fly off the screen as realms of experience are retraced, redefined, and radically visualized. A rigorously new approach to film began to gain momentum in 1960´s Japan, proposing new ways of exploring politics, sexuality, aesthetics, and the medium itself. Be it from inside the avantgarde, the politically radicalized students, the emerging 8mm film scene: Dissent with dominant film culture was being formulated from several directions at once, and condensed in a wave of exciting and formshattering films. The massive influence this movement exerted is virtually unknown in Europe and America even today. Nippon Connection is proud to present a collection that explores experimental film in Japan from several angles to expose its sheer breadth and scope. International and Japanese guests are present to propose various perspectives on these brave and adventurous films that are almost impossible to see even in Japan. This retrospective was made possible through the kind cooperation of Image Forum, Gô HIRASAWA, Ken'ichi ÔKUBO and Jonathan Hall.
Programme 1 - Crazy Love
Wed 06.06 / 20:30 / WORM / Rotterdam
Tue 12.06 / 20:30 / Filmhuis Den Haag
Sat 16.06 / 13:30 / Kriterion / Amsterdam
![Crazy Love [Movie still]](media/films04_01.jpg)
With his ironic pop visions OKABE Michio soon became one of the darlings of the Tokyo Underground and experimental scene in the late sixties. His uplifting 'Crazy Love', pays tribute to his soulmates Kenneth ANGER and Jack SMITH, borderlining between documentary and experimental film and giving a unique insight to the Tokyo of the times with its hippies and happenings.
Dutch première
Japan 1968, 16 mm, 93 Min, without dialogue
Director: OKABE Michio
Programme 2 - Counterculture (selected by HIRASAWA Go)
Sat 09.06 / 14:30 / Lantaren-Venster / Rotterdam
Total ca. 60 Min
'Counterculture' assembles the boiling aesthetics of the politicized underground scene.
WOLS
Japan 1965, 16 mm, 18 Min, without dialogue
Director: Motoharu JÔNOUCHI
Gewaltopia Trailer (Gebarutopia Torêra)
Japan 1968, 16 mm, 13 Min, without dialogue
Director: Motoharu JÔNOUCHI
Sashinguwa
![Sashinguwa [Movie still]](media/films04_02.jpg)
Japan 1973, 16 mm, 13 Min, without dialogue
Director: Go TAKAMINE
Shinjuku Station
Japan 1974, 16 mm, 14 Min, without dialogue
Director: Motoharu JÔNOUCHI
Programme 3 - Indispensable 8 (selected by OKUBO Ken)
Sun 10.06 / 13:00 / Lantaren-Venster / Rotterdam
With an introduction by Tom MES, co-author of 'The Midnight Eye Guide to New Japanese Film'.
Nakasendo
Nobuhiko OBAYASHI is one of the pioneer of Japanese independent Filmmakers who started out to make films out of studio in the early '60's in Japan under the influence of American underground films. Obayashi says this film is intended to make an " Arabesque ", decomposing all the fragments of images from real landscape. That was the concept (" It was a new word at that time", he says ) and film was shot with Double 8 camera. It was before "Single 8 " film and camera came out from FUJI co. and filmmakers cut 16mm films into half. " Camera was an extension of my hand and cutting directly showed my heartbeat" (Obayashi) Later he became a director for the theatres but he still think 8mm film was truly unique and substitutable media and it still is.
NAKASENDÔ
Japan 1963, DVD, 16 Min, without dialogue
Director: Nobuhiko ÔBAYASHI
Eve of Runaway
![Eve of Runaway [Movie still]](media/films04_03.jpg)
Kiyoshi KUROSAWA and Kunitoshi MANDA are two of the so many filmmakers who started out to make their films by a small 8 mm film camera in the '70's. Later, many of them became directors for theatrical films with 35 mm films but they have keep some of their senses from the 8mm years. Eve of Runaway shows a particular style, unique from their group "Parodias Army' (later, the name has changed into "Parodias Unity" and became more popular) . Set in a university campus, first half directed by MANDA shows a basement space of the building under the control of the student radicals in the late '60's and early '70's. Very much peculiar in Japanese, the languages of their agitations are in strange tones but actually in this part they are speaking about the theme of "What is film ?" and "What is to make films?" For the second half, the director KUROSAWA says it is truly and simply an action film. No dialogue in this part and Kurosawa selected the song for himself.
TÔSÔ ZENYA
Japan 1983, DVD, 8 Min, original (1. part), without dialogue (2. part), translation japanese-german available
Directors: Kunitoshi MANDA (1. part) & Kiyoshi KUROSAWA (2. part)
New Angels
Director OTANI (born in 1977) is one of the young filmmakers who still making their films with 8 mm. He started to make films after graduating university. He says about this film that it is based on his concern how he can show the expanse of space and time with the minimum action, words and situations. Through the images of a young sister and a young brother, the correspondence of inner world and the outside. The visual style here is very much like classic films in a way and far different from the digital touch which is much around us now.
KONIWA-KA
Japan 2004, DVD, 13 Min, barely dialogue, translation of the poem japanese-german available
Director: Takayoshi OTANI
Woman on the Whale
Director ONO is one of the youngest. He still is in his university and a member of the active group "GINGA (Galaxy )" to make 8 mm films and exhibit them. Also he is one of the filmmakers who welcome for digital technology and include it in his making process. This film was made with 8 mm films, 16mm films and Hi 8 video. He edited it with a computer. And although ONO should not be conscious himself, the images here is nicely and strangely reminds us the touch of old experimentals with crossover genes.
KUJIRA NI OTTA ONNA
DVD, 7 Min, without dialogue
Director: Mitsuhiro ONO
Machibito
A lyrical and aesthetically impressive film based on a short story by legendary well-known writer Natsume SOUSEKI.
Japan 2003, DVD, 13 Min, OmeU
Director: Jun WATANABE
with: Ikuro YAGI, Yumi KAWASHIMA, Ryo KUROSAWA
Nippon Connection on Tour
Nippon Connection is het grootste podium voor de hedendaagse Japanse cinema buiten Japan. Dit filmfestival, dat in 2007 voor de zevende maal werd gehouden in Frankfurt a.M., komt voor de derde keer onder de naam ‘Nippon Connection on Tour’ naar Nederland. CAMERA JAPAN is trots een selectie van de hoogtepunten van dit festival in Nederland te vertonen.
Nippon Connection in Frankfurt, Germany, is now the biggest showcase for Japanese film outside of Japan. Around 150 films are shown over five days, accompanied by a wealth of lectures, workshops, performances and parties. The intention is to increase the interaction between European and Japanese artists, and of course introduce the sheer variety of Japanese film. (One of these projects is Nippon Connection On Tour. CAMERA JAPAN proudly presents a selection of highlights from the Nippon Retro program this year.