The SineKasimanwa and the Japan Foundation will present Japanese Classic Experimental Films starting 2:00 P.M. at the Iloilo Museum of Contemporary Art for free.
REGISTER here to reserve a seat. You still have the time. The organizer we will only reserve your seat for 15 minutes max after the show has started ► https://forms.gle/qajv9R6CdfPmEq7n6
See the following films:
War Games (Donald Rochie) 1962, 30min.
This beautifully photographed, stark tale, takes place on a deserted Japanese beach. War Games not only explores the subtle aspects of the character’s interaction, but also is a metaphor for the rites of death and man’s inability to coexist with follow man. The final image establishes a continuum as a solitary boy watches the water wash away the killed animal’s grave, unearthing it as at would an artifact.
The Cage (Shuji Terayama) 1962, 12min.
This film was made in the very early stage of the Japanese experimental film development. Characters illustrated in this film are all discarded from reality; a woman dances fetishistically as the film rolls on, a man keeps on knocking the steel door of Dante’s hell gate for which there is never a reply. This work is comprised of filmed materials which are then made into a collage, where Terayama’s cinematic concept of the screening process is not yet included as in the later work. (Rio Kishida)
Coffee Break (Taku Furukawa) 1977, 5min.
A fantasy while drinking a cup of coffee. It took twenty animators six months to create this film only three minutes in length. The scale of the scene in the second half in which all of the products of civilization float up into the sky is particularly breathtaking.
Switch Back (Nobuhiro Kawanaka) 1976, 9min.
A nostalgic experiment in recomposition based on old manually colorized postcards and 35mm newsreel footage from just after the end of the war that the filmmaker received from an acquaintance. The emotions felt when first getting hold of these films and photographs of unknown authorship are directly established within the context of filmmaker’s own work. In the attempt to rediscover new images in old materials, the same shots are shown over and over again, as though bringing to light something that has been overlooked, gradually tinging the work with an air of mystery.
Spacy (Takashi Ito) 1980-81, 10min.
A work produced with seven hundred photographs as the Subject material. Inside an empty gymnasium, there is a stand left there with a photograph stuck to it. As the camera comes closer, it becomes apparent that what is developed on the photograph is the same scene of the gymnasium interior. What follows is an infinite regression which brings forth a dizzying sense of movement.