Origins of Japanese Experimental Cinema

Pleasure Dome presents
Origins of Japanese Experimental Cinema
Guest Curated by Ian Toews (In Person)
Friday, January 23, 8 pm $5 @ Cinecycle, 129 Spadina Ave. (down the lane)
Sponsored by the Images Festival

Pleasure Dome and the Images Festival are pleased to present Ian Toews¹
guest curated program Origins of Japanese Experimental Cinema. Kick off your
film and video year with this extremely rare screening of works ranging from
Shuji Teruyama¹s seminal underground classic Emperor Tomato Ketchup (1970)
to Takashi Ito¹s eye-bending masterwork Spacey (1981) < probably your only
chance to see some of these films in their intended format.

The history of Japanese experimental cinema is very short. While there are
some notes and written record of tests and experiments, the films of the pre
WWII period have never been found and are believed to have been destroyed by
the American air raids of 1944-5.
The 1960s started with the translated publication of Jonas Mekas¹
landmark, ³Towards a Spontaneous Cinema: A New Trend of Film in the United
States². This article had an impact on the young Japanese makers, who like
Cassevettes, Deren, and Brakhage (cited in the article) sought something
very different than the national cinema¹s dominant industrial modelS
WWII¹s destruction of their country is central to the modern Japanese
psyche. Feelings of pain and disgrace soon gave way to those of pacifism
and peace. This revulsion to war was further re-enforced by Japan¹s meteoric
rise to world economic dominance (in about the 1970¹s) < a feat achieved
without guns and war, but with hard work and determination. Still, the
spectre of war and mass destruction is a theme never far from the surface in
Japanese cinema. (Ian Toews)

Program:
Naval and A bomb, 10mins, 1960, Eiko Hosoe
Emperor Tomato Ketchup, 27 mins, 1970, Shuji Teruyama
Burning Star, 20 mins, 1996, Kenji Onishi
Flesh, 6mins, 1993, Tachibana Karou.
My Movie Melodies, 6mins, 1980, Junichi Okuyama
Spacey, 10mins, 1981, Takashi Ito