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On Tuesday, May 27, 2025, the Nippon Connection Film Festival in Frankfurt am Main will open its doors for the 25th time! For six days, the world’s largest festival for Japanese cinema will present a varied program with over 100 current short and feature-length films as well as around 70 cultural events, including concerts, workshops, lectures, and exhibitions. With over 10,000 tickets already sold in advance and numerous events sold out, as well as around 200 filmmakers and artists attending, another record-breaking festival appears to be in store. The full program and tickets are available at NipponConnection.com.

“What began as a student project in 2000 has developed into an internationally recognized meeting place for Japanese film and culture over the last 25 years. We are celebrating this anniversary with a program that impressively reflects the diversity, creativity and relevance of Japanese cinema.” – Marion Klomfass (Festival Director)

The festival will open on May 27 at 7:00 p.m.

On January 26, 2024, it was revealed that Satoshi Kirishima, a fugitive wanted in connection with a series of corporate bombings and a member of the East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front, had been hospitalized in Kanagawa Prefecture. He had been living under an alias but came forward, saying, “I want to face the end with my real name.” Kirishima passed away three days after the news broke, and due to his death, he was not prosecuted for his suspected involvement in the bombing of the Korea Industrial and Economic Research Institute building, for which he had been on the national wanted list under charges of violating explosives control regulations.

This year saw two films tackling the his life, both directed by former associates of Koji Wakamatsu, whose ties with Jra and Pflp are well documented. Banmei Takahashi created “I Am Kirishima,” while Masao Adachi, who was more deeply involved in the armed...

On January 26, 2024, it was revealed that Satoshi Kirishima, a fugitive wanted in connection with a series of corporate bombings and a member of the East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front, had been hospitalized in Kanagawa Prefecture. He had been living under an alias but came forward, saying, “I want to face the end with my real name.” Kirishima passed away three days after the news broke, and due to his death, he was not prosecuted for his suspected involvement in the bombing of the Korea Industrial and Economic Research Institute building, for which he had been on the national wanted list under charges of violating explosives control regulations. Banmei Takahashi has come up with a biopic on this contradictory figure, focusing on both of his capacities.

I Am Kirishima is screening at Osaka Asian Film Festival

As such, the movie begins in the 70s, when Japan’s rapid economic growth was...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Roxy Cinema

One of our era’s great musicians, Lex Walton, introduces I-Be Area on Friday; Babe: Pig in the City screens for free on Sunday.

Film at Lincoln Center

A career-spanning Frederick Wiseman retrospective begins.

IFC Center

A new 4K restoration of Picnic at Hanging Rock begins a run; Eraserhead and Mulholland Dr. screen; The Actor, Misery, House, and Jennifer’s Body show late.

Museum of the Moving Image

Snubbed Forever brings 35mm prints of Dog Day Afternoon, Batman Returns, and Barton Fink.

Museum of Modern Art

A Jerry Schatzberg retrospective begins.

Film Forum

Groundhog Day screens on Groundhog Day.

Anthology Film Archives

Wandering Women features films by Barbara Loden, Sembène, Chantal Akerman, Masao Adachi and more.

Metrograph

Mouchette, The Grandmaster, Crouching Tiger, Children of Paradise, Uncut Gems, and (if time and money mean nothing to you) Emilia Pérez...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Film Forum

Michael Roemer’s Dying and Pilgrim, Farewell, screen (watch our exclusive trailer debut); AI: From Metropolis to Ex Machina continues; a print of The Music Man screens on Sunday.

Anthology Film Archives

Wandering Women features films by Barbara Loden, Sembène, Ken Loach, Masao Adachi and more.

IFC Center

Eraserhead, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, Mulholland Dr., and Inland Empire all screen; the classic rock doc Dig! returns with an extended recut Seven and Jennifer’s Body show late.

Roxy Cinema

Fat City screens on 35mm this Saturday alongside the return of City Dudes; Brick plays Friday.

Museum of Modern Art

A major highlight of any filmgoing year, To Save and Project continues.

Museum of the Moving Image

See It Big! Let It Snow brings The Shining, Larisa Shepitko’s The Ascent, and a 35mm print of The Gold Rush...

The magnum opus of Koji Wakamatsu is actually not a low budget pink/exploitation film but a true political epic of 190 minutes that would stay in history both for the final result, and for the production details, before, during and after the shootings were completed. To finance the film, Wakamatsu flooded Tokyo with pamphlets requesting pledges of substantial sums of money to finance the project, with Jim O’Rourke (ex-member of Sonic Youth and the one who was responsible for the soundtrack) and film critic Inuhiko Yomota being among those who decided to help. When it became obvious that the funding was not enough, he mortgaged his house, which, he used to shoot the finale of the movie, destroying it in the process. Furthermore, he demanded that the actresses would not wear make-up, that they would arrive on the set already wearing their costumes and that their managers would not be...

The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff) on Monday added a David Lynch short and an episode of his iconic series Twin Peaks to its Franz Kafka retrospective and unveiled the program of its Out of the Past section, featuring classic, cult, rare and “unfairly overlooked” films, screened in their original or restored versions.

Among the highlights are restored versions of Wim Wenders’ 1984 neo-Western drama Paris, Texas and Two English Girls, François Truffaut’s 1971 period drama about a love triangle.

The Wenders film is part of a three-film program presented by Alexandre O. Philippe, the creator of documentary essays about the history of cinema, offering perspectives on the American landscape in cinema. He will also present his 2021 documentary The Taking (2021), which explores American mythology through the socio-philosophical dimensions of the American landscape.

Also part of the Out of the Past program is Let’s Get Lost, Bruce Weber’s documentary about...

The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival has announced its first wave of program details for its upcoming 58th edition, which is set to take place from June 28 through July 6, 2024. The Czech festival, widely considered to be the most prestigious film festival in Eastern Europe, is set to honor one of the nation’s most famous writers with a new retrospective titled “Franz Kafka and the Cinema.”

The series is set to feature screenings of a wide range of films inspired by the Czech novelist, who famously wove themes of alienation and existential angst into cryptic novels that often flirted with surrealism. Some films, like Orson Welles’ “The Trial” are direct adaptations of Kafka’s writings; but the series also includes movies about Kafka’s life, and films like Martin Scorsese’s “After Hours” that were influenced by Kafka’s ideas.

“For decades, Kafka’s oeuvre has functioned as a continuing provocation to filmmakers,...

The Karlovy Vary Film Festival and Variety have teamed up to honor Francine Maisler, one of the world’s most respected casting directors, whose recent credits include “Dune: Part Two,” “The Bikeriders,” “Challengers,” “Civil War” and “Joker: Folie à Deux.”

Maisler has worked on more than 70 feature films and is a recipient of 15 Artios Awards from the Casting Society of America, including for “Marriage Story” in 2020 and “Don’t Look Up” in 2021. As well as working with director Denis Villeneuve on “Dune: Part Two,” “Dune,” “Arrival” and “Sicario,” her other films include Terrence Malick’s “Tree of Life” and “Knight of Cups,” and Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “The Revenant” and “Birdman.” In 2022, she won a Primetime Emmy Award for her work on HBO’s “Succession.”

As part of its homage, Karlovy Vary will hold a special screening of one of the films which Maisler worked on. Maisler will also give a public master class,...

The issue of the Zainichi Koreans was one that interested Nagisa Oshima significantly, with him having shot the TV documentary “Forgotten Soldiers” in 1963 and the experimental short “Diary of Yunbogi” in 1965. Two events revolving around the problems of Koreans in Japan, the Kim Hiro and the Komatsugawa Incident, were also roots of inspiration for him, resulting in two films, “Death by Hanging” and “Three Resurrected Drunkards” both of which use irony, theatricality and intense avant-garde elements to portray his take on the subject.

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The overall directorial approach here becomes apparent from the beginning, as it shows three Japanese students at the beach, reenacting one of the most famous pictures of the Vietnam war, before they decide to strip to their underwear and go for a swim. While they are swimming, a hand emerges from the sand and steals their clothes,...

Allow me to start with a very personal note. I think that the 60s and early 70s was the most interesting period in the history of Japanese cinema, with the avant-garde approach that emerged at the time resulting in some of the most unique films ever to see the light of day. At the same time, and considering that the majority of works about Japanese cinema history we get our hands in the West are written by Western writers, it is always interesting to see how much more light locals can shed on the subject. Lastly, and in the same path, considering that the “Aesthetics of Shadow” by Daisuke Miyao was truly masterful, I was really eager to read “Cinema of Actuality”.

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After a prologue, which is, as usual in academic works, the most complicated part in the whole book,...

Revolution+1.On July 8, 2022, Shinzo Abe, who had been the longest-serving prime minister of Japan in its postwar years, was shot and killed in broad daylight in a country with barely any civilian access to firearms. The suspect was immediately arrested, and commentators from all over the world began to speculate about the killer’s motive. After a few days, the police revealed that the 41-year-old Tetsuya Yamagami, who had built his own gun and tracked Abe’s movements, had not originally planned to kill Abe. In fact, the most high-profile political assassination in decades was carried out by a man who cared little for politics. Legendary Japanese filmmaker Masao Adachi, sensing a story sure to be misconstrued by the press, immediately began production on a biopic—not of Abe, but of Yamagami. At the North American premiere of the film, Revolution+1 (2023), last July, he said that this quick turnaround was not intended to garner controversy,...

Director and screenwriter Haruhiko Arai worked as an assistant director for Wakamatsu Productions before making his screenwriting debut with Shinjuku, Messy District: I'll Be There (1977), directed by Chusei Sone. He established his reputation in Japan and worldwide with works such as W's Tragedy (1984), Flakes of Snow (1985), and Someday (2011). For the latter Haruhiko received the Screenplay of the Year Award by the Japan Academy Film Prize. Body and Soul (1997) was his directorial debut. A Spoiling Rain (2023), IFFR 2024 selection, is his fourth feature film.

On the occasion of “A Spoiling Rain” screening at IFFR, we speak with him about the changes he have seen in the industry through the years, love and sex, adapting the particular novel, the casting and the current situation of the Japanese film industry.

translation by Shione Kunimori

My name is Haruhiko Arai. It has been 27 years since I was at the IFFR last time. 27 years ago, I...

The Portuguese festival showcases documentaries from around the world.

The 21st edition of DocLisboa will open with Wang Bing’s Man In Black, and will close with Baan from Portuguese director Leonor Teles.

Man In Black premiered at Cannes and Baan made its debut at Locarno earlier this year.

The festival will take place in Lisbon from October 19-29.

Wang Bing, via videoconference, and Telles both participated in the festival press conference on September 28 at which festival director Miguel Ribeiro revealed this year’s programme in full.

Bing explained his film profiles 86-year-old Wang Xilin, one of China’s most important contemporary classical composers,...

L'amour fou.Audacity is not usually what one thinks of when imagining the first film to show at a new edition of Cannes, but indeed starting the festival with a restoration of Jacques Rivette’s rare L’amour fou (1969) was a daring choice. Over four hours long, its story is radically split between rehearsals for Racine’s Andromache (shot in 16mm by fictional television crew that Rivette let independently operate) and off-stage drama between its director and his actress wife. At the film’s onset, Bulle Ogier quits her acting role in her husband’s play and invents for herself a personal drama of infidelity and paranoia. Her husband, meanwhile, gets lost in his rehearsals and also seems infected—intellectually and emotionally—by his wife’s quite reasonable, albeit extreme, concoction. The dialogue between theater and life, fact and fiction, husband and wife is grueling and frequently despairing, yet its telling is dexterous and mysterious,...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI, and sign up for our weekly email newsletter by clicking here.NEWSThe Act of Killing. Though he’s known for nonfiction, Joshua Oppenheimer just began production on a musical about the end of the world, fittingly called The End. Filming now in Dublin, it stars Tilda Swinton and George Mackay, via the production company’s website.After 23 years, A.O. Scott is stepping away from film criticism at the New York Times, transitioning to a new role as a critic at large for the Book Review. He conducts his own exit interview.In comedy news, Safdie muse and Razzie record-breaker Adam Sandler was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor this week in Washington, D.C.Finally, we’re thinking of the character actor Lance Reddick this week, who died suddenly last Friday at...

The history of the Japanese pink industry is one of the most intriguing in the whole history of cinema, with the ways these rather cheap, barely passing censorship movies became one of the most integral parts of the declining local industry during the 70s, particularly in the way they allowed new voices to quickly ascend the hierarchy towards first directors, and for the money they earned, which supported a large number of companies and their employees. Kejiro Fujii records this path through history, through a narrative that is quite intriguing in its approach, apart from its context.

Quite fittingly, the movie begins with one of the most prestigious directors that began their careers from pinku films, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, with his experiences and path in the particular industry setting the tone for the rest of the documentary. The interviews continue with some of the pioneers of the genre, with Banmei Takahashi,...

Koji Wakamatsu was born in Wakuya, Miyagi, Japan on 1 April 1936. He worked as a construction worker before beginning his film career with Nikkatsu in 1963, mostly working in their Roman Porno series. Eventually, he formed his own company, Wakamatsu Pro, where he produced the majority of his films, a number of which feature collaborations with Masao Adachi, who functioned as his scriptwriter. The majority of his films were extremely low-budget, shot in a few days but sill managed to combine artistry, sociopolitical commentary and exploitation elements in the most artful ways. His success was mostly commercial in Japan, but the big European festivals, including Cannes and Berlin frequently featured his works, since the 60s. His prolific career includes more than 115 titles, in a life that could easily inspire tomes. Wakamatsu died on 17 October 2012 after being hit by a taxi cab in Tokyo on 12 October on his way home after a budget...

Allow me to begin this review with a personal note. Among the plethora of books about (Asian) cinema I have read, this one is definitely one of the better ones, if not the best. The combination of research and context (just mentioning all the topics Jasper Sharp examines here would fill a small book), the quality of personal comments, the language, and the overall illustration of the Fab Press edition, which is filled with film stills, posters etc, including a rather impressive middle section as much as great front and back covers, are all top-notch, to the point that one would have to dig really deep to find any flaw in the book. Let us take things from the beginning though.

The book begins ideally, as Sharp starts his narration by dealing with the history of nudity on film, the differences between art and pornography, the differences between Western and Japanese pornography,...

Yohta Kawase was born on December 28, 1969 in Kawasaki, Japan. He started his career as assistant director to Shozin Fukui in the 90s, but soon turned into acting. Currently, he has more than 150 films under his belt, most of which belong to the pinku genre. His latest works include “Blank 13” by Takumi Saitoh, “Demolition Girl” by Genta Matsugami and “A Balance” by Yujiro Harumoto, which premiered at the latest Berlinale.

We speak with him about his prolific career, acting in pink films, Takahisa Zeze, Yutaka Ikejima and Daisuke Goto, the latest generation of Japanese directors, his latest work, “Rageaholic” and many other topics.

Translated from Japanese by Lukasz Mankowski

You started your career in pinku films and you have won many awards for your performances. How did that come about and how was your experience of acting in those films? Was it difficult acting in all those sex scenes?

I actually...

By the 70’s, and through his own production company, Wakamatsu Pro, Koji Wakamatsu had managed to move pretty far away from his pinku past, with his movies screening at university campuses and Theatre Scorpio, attracting a more youthful and intellectual audience, who were looking for much more than titillation. Wakamatsu, always the great “promoter”, realized this change in his audience, and proceeded on making films that were more political, and also captured the interest of his new audience, with “Shinjuku Mad”, which takes place in one of the most vibrant with youthfulness areas of Tokyo, being a great example of this turn.

The film begins with two members of a theatre group being assaulted by a group of unknown thugs, who kill the man, and then strip the woman bare and paint her naked body with his blood, in a scene that strays away from the rest of the movie,...

The magnum opus of Koji Wakamatsu is actually not a low budget pink/exploitation film but a true political epic of 190 minutes that would stay in history both for the final result, and for the production details, before, during and after the shootings were completed. To finance the film, Wakamatsu flooded Tokyo with pamphlets requesting pledges of substantial sums of money to finance the project, with Jim O’Rourke (ex-member of Sonic Youth and the one who was responsible for the soundtrack) and film critic Inuhiko Yomota being among those who decided to help. When it became obvious that the funding was not enough, he mortgaged his house, which, he used to shoot the finale of the movie, destroying it in the process. Furthermore, he demanded that the actresses would not wear make-up, that they would arrive on the set already wearing their costumes and that their managers would not...

The killer combo of Masao Adachi as scriptwriter and Koji Wakamatsu as director, and the juxtaposition of the exploitation elements of the pink films and intense political comments about the era resulted in a number of movies that were quite successful, despite their rather miniscule budget and the haste they were shot in. “Ecstasy of the Angels” however, differed because it was backed by Art Theatre Guild, which allowed for a much higher budget that had a direct impact on both its duration (it was almost a half hour longer than the majority of the previous Wakamatsu-Adachi films) and its sequences in color, which are much more frequent. To better explain this last point, we should note that Koji Wakamatsu had once stated “The mix between black-and-white and color was imposed by the distributor who financed the films. As he didn’t have enough money to shoot everything in color,...

By the 70s, and through his cooperation with Masao Adachi, Koji Wakamatsu’s films had become rather political, although the exploitation elements of sex and violence were still rather intense. Taking inspiration by the demonstrations against the Anpo treaty and the militarization of a number of factions of students, Wakamatsu begun shooting “Sex Jack” from a script by Adachi, one week before the protests that took place after the new Anpo treaty was signed (14 June 1970). Having information that one of the venues of the Anpo demonstration was Yoyogi Park, near his office in Shinjuku, he went there with his camera and filmed a group of rioters throwing Molotov cocktails at the police. This reportage footage was included in the intro of the film, and actually became a permanent characteristic in Wakamatsu’s filmography, as similar footage was included in later films, like “Ecstasy of the Angels”. The film was screened...

The first film Koji Wakamatsu released after leaving Nikkatsu and instituting his own production company, Wakamatsu Pro, was a testament to the rest of his work, in terms of production, aesthetics and overall approach, including the title. With a minuscule budget in his hands (although the later “Violent Virgin” had an even smaller) and based on an idea he came up with while looking at the rain outside of his company office’s windows that Masao Adachi turned into a proper script, “The Embryo Hunts in Secret” was, nevertheless, a highly profitable venture. This success can be attributed to Wakamatsu’s connection with exhibitors, but also due to its screening at the 1968 Knokke-Le-Zoute Experimental Film Festival in Belgium.

The film begins with a couple making out in the man’s car, before the woman suggests that she would prefer to proceed in somewhere else, and the man offering his place.

Written by Masao Adachi, one of director Koji Wakamatsu’s most important collaborators, shot in 4 days in the same building that used to house Wakamatsu’s film company and cheekily conveyed via a flimsy pinku veneer, “Go Go Second Time Virgin” is one of the strongest portraits of 1960s’ nihilism and a powerful poetic statement about a generation miserably failed by society.

Without much warning for the audience, before the opening credits, a girl called Poppo (Mimi Kozakura) is gang-raped by a group of young solvent-sniffing losers on a rooftop terrace. It’s night, the girl screams at first but after a bit she succumbs to the inevitable, becoming completely non-reactive. On a side, another teenager is looking at the scene; Tsukio (Michio Akiyama) is not part of the gang, he is just an observer, but he doesn’t do anything to stop them while a mix...

The series Keiko Sato: Pinku Maverick starts on Mubi on March 3, 2021 in many countries.Above: Blue Film WomanThese films, “Pink Cinema,” are anything but easy to digest; women are violently abused and objectified, sex is often un-consensual or underaged, murder, torture, suicide and castration are commonplace, and incest is an assumed normality. It’s fair to say that the appeal of these films, for many modern-day audiences, is not necessarily clear. So why are these films being restored and rewatched now?The long-debated question “is pornography essentially harmful to women?” is brought to the fore in these films and lingers on each drawn-out sexual violence scene. Amia Srinivasan, reflecting on this question with reference to Nancy Bauer’s essay on pornography, notes that “to fully understand this question, we need to attend more carefully to the particularities of pornography and the role it plays not just in culture generally but...

The concept of “the prostitute” has been fascinating directors all over the world for quite some time, with the psychosynthesis of the sex professionals drawing as much interest as the opportunity to use the concept as a metaphor for various sociopolitical comments. Despite the fact that such themes always had issues with censorship, an abundance of movies about the subject can be also found in Asian cinema, and particularly in countries like Japan, S. Korea and India.

In this list, we will present 20 of the greatest Asian films about prostitutes in chronological order, with a focus on diversity regarding countries, directors and style of presentation.

1. Gate of Flesh

Mini-militias of prostitutes create their own code to survive in “Gates Of Flesh”, by selling themselves in an organised gang fashion, protecting their turf, of bombed out Tokyo, viciously. This was no time for romanticism, frivolity or even love; this is a brutal game of survival.

Shot at the wastelands near the city of Gotemba, at the foot of Mount Fuji, “Violent Virgin” was conceived by Wakamatsu while he was producing Masao Adachi’s “High School Girl Guerilla”, and shared casts and crew with it. Atsushi Yamatoya came up with a script in three days, Nagisa Oshima came with the title (“shojo geba geba”), while the miniscule budget (even for Wakamatsu’s standards) is obvious in its bareness in almost all aspects, in a film that is distinctly exploitative.

The rather basic script has a group of yakuza and their “girls” coming together in a wasteland-like area to lynch Hana, the unfaithful mistress of the boss, and her lover Hoshi, a low-level yakuza. Initially, the lovers are tied together and blindfolded, with them even starting to caress each other erotically despite their situation, but soon they are split, with the girl getting tied...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: Joaquin Phoenix in Joker (2019). The first few details have emerged regarding Ari Aster's next feature, with Joaquin Phoenix in talks to star. Tentatively titled Beau is Afraid, the film (previously a 2011 short film by Aster) involves an anxious man's surreal and nightmarish trek to his overbearing mother's home following her death. Meanwhile, Spike Lee has announced his plans to direct a musical about the launch of launch of Pfizer’s erectile dysfunction drug, Viagra. Recommended VIEWINGNew York's Screen Slate and Collaborative Cataloging Japan recently hosted a Twitch discussion with legendary filmmaker Masao Adachi on Gewaltpia: Motoharu Jonouchi and the Japanese Avant-Garde. The stream will remain online through tomorrow, and then will be available to Screen Slate's Patreon supporters. Omelia Contadina, by Jr and Alice Rohrwacher in collaboration with the inhabitants of the Alfina plateau,...

Pinku-eiga, usually full of misogynistic scenes and almost painful for the viewer’s eyes exploitation, doesn’t seem to have much in common with feminism. Unless we talk about Masao Adachi and his “Gushing Prayer” – an untypical pinku-eiga film, which is still appearing in programs of the most important festivals like Berlinale or International Film Festival Rotterdam.

The early 70s. Japan has just come through 1968 and radicalized students protests. Yasuko, Yoichi, Koichi and Bill are teenagers, who started their own fight against adulthood and its doubtful morality by, as they say, “beating sex”. When Yasuko confesses that she slept with their teacher, her peers unanimously accuse her of breaking their secret rule and call her “a prostitute”. As if that was not enough, Yasuko turns out to be pregnant, which bothers her friends even more. These unexpected circumstances trigger off the teenagers, who decide to examine the...

Have you heard of “Kamagasaki”? Probably not. Because it is the invisible slum in the city of Osaka filled with bums and outsiders. Endangered by gentrification, the neighborhood provides a colorful habitat for Leo Sato’s extraordinary 16mm debut film.

“The Kamagasaki Cauldron War” is screening at Japan Cuts 2019

“The Kamagasaki Cauldron War” offers a fresh cinematic style. Its mixed cast, consisting of amateur and professional actors, holds many funny moments for the audience. As we follow a ridiculous plot revolving around a stolen sake pot, the film takes on many stereotypes and combines humor with mystery, violence and a variety of other genres.

A 12-year-old kid, a prostitute, and a pickpocket are part of one big puzzle that “The Kamagasaki Cauldron War” steadily puts together. Director Leo Sato uses guerilla-style, on-location shooting and surprises with a diverse pick of actors, ranging from Shoji Omiya to a little cameo from outlaw director Masao Adachi.

Pinku-eiga, usually full of misogynistic scenes and almost painful for the viewer’s eyes exploitation, doesn’t seem to have much in common with feminism. Unless we talk about Masao Adachi and his “Gushing Prayer” – an untypical pinku-eiga film, which is still appearing in programs of the most important festivals like Berlinale or International Film Festival Rotterdam.

“Gushing Prayer” screened at Japan Film Fest Hamburg

The early 70s. Japan has just come through 1968 and radicalized students protests. Yasuko, Yoichi, Koichi and Bill are teenagers, who started their own fight against adulthood and its doubtful morality by, as they say, “beating sex”. When Yasuko confesses that she slept with their teacher, her peers unanimously accuse her of breaking their secret rule and call her “a prostitute”. As if that was not enough, Yasuko turns out to be pregnant, which bothers her friends even more. These unexpected circumstances trigger off the teenagers,...

During the latest years, Kazuya Shiraishi has emerged as one of the prominent names of the “entertaining” Japanese film, with works like “The Blood of Wolves” and “Birds Without Names” among others. This tendency of his continues in “Dare to Stop Us”, a rather appealing look at the work of Koji Wakamatsu (Shiraishi actually worked for his production company), through the eyes of an almost completely unknown assistant, Megumi Yoshizumi.

“Dare to Stop Us” is screening atUdine Far East Film Festival

The story begins in 1969, when Megumi, 21-year old at the time, manages to get to Wakamatsu’s “family” as assistant director, through a common acquaintance known as the Spook. While there (with there meaning an office where everyone gatheres to organize their movies), she meets a number of “figures” except the eccentric Wakamatsu, including Masao Adachi, Haruhiko Arai and Kenji Takama, who eventually becomes a love interest. At the beginning,...

During the latest years, Kazuya Shiraishi has emerged as one of the prominent names of the “entertaining” Japanese film, with works like “The Blood of Wolves” and “Birds Without Names” among others. This tendency of his continues in “Dare to Stop Us”, a rather appealing look to the work of Koji Wakamatsu (Shiraishi actually worked for his production company), through the eyes of an almost completely unknown assistant, Megumi Yoshizumi.

“Dare to Stop Us” screened at Helsinki Cine Aasia 2019

The story begins in 1969, when Megumi, 21-year old at the time, manages to get to Wakamatsu’s family as assistant director, through a common acquaintance known as the Spook. While there (with there meaning an office where everyone gathered to organize their movies), she meets a number of “figures” except the eccentric Wakamatsu, including Masao Adachi, Haruhiko Arai and Kenji Takama who eventually becomes a love interest. At the beginning, Wakamatsu ignores her,...

A policeman reads a taciturn woman her statement back to her, a confession of killing her friend’s child. She reacts minimally, either disconnected or disassociated, and when the policeman informs her that her confession will lead to judgement, she foggily explains she has already been judged—by something, something "like time." This strange transition from a criminal drama to intangible abstraction is the suggestive opening to Natsuka Kusano’s second feature Domains, where this terrible crime and the genre story attached to it—how did this murder come about, why did the woman kill the child, what will happen to her?—are a misdirection. The truly important part of this prelude was the fact that the policeman read out loud the woman’s story for her, because what follows over the next two and a half hours in this bold venture is just that: reading. After some credits, Kusano...

“This is Ali Baba, town of mystery…”

As most of us know, the 1960s, especially the second half, were a time of upheaval, protests and general unrest in many areas of the world. Protests against the Vietnam War and the establishment resulted in a decade defined by violence on the one side, but also change on the other. Culturally, one could argue the late 1960s and early 1970s constitute one of the most interesting periods for the arts, a moment in time during which the possibility of change was a tangible shimmer on the horizon. And even though much of this hope was shattered by a re-affirmation of the ruling order – at least to some extent – the minds of people had been changed forever, as evident in the way culture has changed during that period.

Of course, times of change and upheaval often tend to give birth to fascinating and...

Close-Up is a feature that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Akihiko Shiota's Wet Woman in the Wind (2016), which is receiving an exclusive global online premiere on Mubi, is showing from November 24 - December 24, 2017 as a Special Discovery.Much like Hollywood, the Japanese film industry goes to the well as often as possible once it hits a lucky strike. Such was the case with the so-called Roman Porno films of the 1970s, an infamous genre of sexploitation primarily identified with Japan’s oldest major studio, Nikkatsu. Financial trouble necessitated a popular, inexpensive product, and these softcore numbers were just the ticket. This may have been the studio where Kenji Mizoguchi and Shohei Imamura made films early in their careers, but by 1971 the Roman Porno factory was in full swing, producing quick, cheap, titillating product for an audience hungry for female toplessness and a great deal of convulsive thrusting.

Dani Leventhal's PlatonicThis review, I think, might best be understood as an example of “slow criticism.” This is a term coined by Filmkrant editor Dana Linssen to describe “wayward articles,” ones that have a personal or political element that is somehow not timely. We can imagine that the reverse of this is “fast criticism,” the up-to-the-minute report from a film festival, the 140-character response tweeted out the minute the first press screening is over. These thoughts are not timely. The Whitney Biennial closed on June 11th, and the film program screened its final program on May 21st. So although I expect many of these films to have a life long after their appearance at the Whitney, I am not providing any kind of late-breaking news flash from the film or art world by writing about these works in this forum.But in a way, that is the point. Even...

I’ve been making 16mm durational urban landscape voiceover films, slowly but surely, since the late ‘90s. My short film Blue Diary premiered at the Berlinale in 1998. My two features, The Joy of Life (2005) and The Royal Road (2015) both premiered in the prestigious New Frontiers section at the Sundance Film Festival and have been as wildly successful as experimental films can be. Which is to say, they remain fairly obscure. My small but enthusiastic fan-base frequently asks me for recommendations of films that are similar to my own in terms of incorporating durational landscapes and voiceover and a meditative pace. While it is certainly one of the smallest subgenres in the realm of filmmaking, here are a handful of excellent landscape cinema examples by the practitioners I know best. I confess that my expertise here is limited and hope that the learned Mubi community will chime in with additions in the comments field below.

Ears, Nose and Throat. Courtesy Kje; Trilobite-Arts Dac; Picture Palace PicturesI've arrived in the Dutch city of Rotterdam after a one year absence—flummoxed several editions in a row by the sprawling but often undistinguishable festival program of international cinema, I decided to try the Berlin film festival instead in 2015. But I've been lured back to the Iffr, as the Rotterdam film festival is abbreviated, for the favorite old reasons: the promise of a fabulously congenial and casual atmosphere of cinema discovery and discussion, extensive retrospective programs, and a promising showing of terrific avant-garde work, some of it projected on film. After attending Locarno for the first time last year in the summer, I have newly kindled hopes for this other European festival, an expansive wintertime festivity once so renowned for premiering adventurous new cinema.You may note I did not mention the festival's Tiger competition, what it is perhaps...

Below you will find our favorite films of the 45th International Film Festival Rotterdam, as well as an index of our coverage.Daniel Kasmantop Picksi. Lejos de los árboles, Le Moulin, Female Student Guerilla, Noche de vino tintoII. Juke: Passages from Films of Spencer Williams, Warsaw Bridge, MotherIII. Night and Fog in the ZonaIV. Where the Chocolate Mountains, ElliV. Operation Avalanche, Sixty Six, Fata Morgana, Cada vez que..., Oleg y las raras artes, ActeonCOVERAGEFirst Steps: Ear, Nose and Throat (Kevin Jerome Everson), Lejos de los árboles (Jacinto Esteva Grewe)Acting Out: General Report II: The New Abduction of Europe (Pere Portabella), Esquizo (Ricardo Bofill), Actor Martinez (Mike Ott, Nathan Silver)Japan's Cinematic Revolutionary: Sex Game (Masao Adachi), Female Student Guerilla (Masao Adachi), Artist of Fasting (Masao Adachi)The Streets, the Mountains, the Snow, and the Ocean: Noche de vino tinto (José María Nunes), Where the Chocolate Mountains (Pat O'Neill), Cinéma...

Sex GameWith so much gentility and desire for respect and accolades to be found in a random scan of any film festival program, the audacity of highlighting the films of someone with as checkered a history—to say the least—as Japanese director Masao Adachi might seem a provocation if this filmmaker was not in his venerable 70s, yet even so his home country wouldn't allow him to travel to Rotterdam for a spotlight on his career. Infamous first as a collaborator with prolific Japanese art-exploitation master Koji Wakamatsu—for whom he wrote a number of screenplays before then directing for Wakamatsu's production company—then for going with Wakamatsu to shoot 1971’s Red Army / Pflp: Declaration of World War in Lebanon, then for joining the Japanese Red Army and remaining in Lebanon for twenty years (an idea even more shameful in Japan than it might be considered elsewhere), Adachi was then arrested for passport violations,...

You want radical? Look no further. Nagisa Oshima's near-legendary issue drama makes a wickedly frightening protest against the death penalty, but then proceeds into formal abstraction and the endorsement of a violent radical position. You can't find a political 'gauntlet picture' as jarring or as potent as this one. Death by Hanging Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 798 1968 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 118 min. / Kôshikei / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date February 16, 2016 / 39.95 Starring Do-yun Yu, Kei Sato, Fumio Watanabe, Toshiro Ishido, Masao Adachi, Rokko Toura, Hosei Komatsu, Masao Matsuda, Akiko Koyama. Cinematography Yasuhiro Yoshioka Film Editor Sueko Shiraishi Original Music Hikaru Hayashi Written by Michinori Fukao. Mamoru Sasaki, Tsutomu Tamura, Nagisa Oshima Produced by Masayuki Nakajima, Takuji Yamaguchi, Nagisa Oshima Directed by Nagisa Oshima

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Believe me, you ain't seen nothing yet. Nagisa Oshima is a radical's radical, a cinema stylist completely committed to his politics -- which...

★★★☆☆ How to solve a problem like Abkhazia? Or rather, how to send a letter from Paris to a country that has not yet been acknowledged by the French state? Documentary filmmaker Eric Baudelaire again chooses the epistolary form in Letters to Max (2014) after employing a series of email exchanges to structure his first film The Anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenbou, Masao Adachi and 27 Years Without Images which dealt with the titular characters' exile in Lebanon.

Éric Baudelaire. Photo © Festival del film Locarno 2013.

Over the past few years, Franco-American artist and filmmaker Éric Baudelaire has become one of the most intriguing voices working in the fluid realm of the cinémas du réel, the new documentary cinema firing up film festivals worldwide. Coming from a fine-arts background, Baudelaire explores the aftermath of actual real-life events in world history, as remembered by those who lived through them, in ways that mirror the shifting shapes of memory; that is, constantly disregarding the standard narrative arc.

For The Anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenobu, Masao Adachi and 27 Years Without Images (2011), sound and vision simply do not match: the lengthy audio interviews with Fusako Shigenobu and film director Masao Adachi, members of the Japanese Red Army group retelling their revolutionary experiences in the 1970s, and with Fusako's daughter May, born in clandestinity, have no possible visual counterpart other than archival or newly shot footage.

4. Desire Without Language

Weekend 3 - Jan.24-26th

The fourth chapter of the Harvard-Gulbenkian program stages a unique extended dialogue between Manuela Viegas and Lucrecia Martel, two artists who share a similar ambition to dramatically renew the potential of the cinema as an audio-visual and uniquely sensorial medium. Unseating the long-standing hierarchy of the visual in the cinema, the films of Viegas and Martel are intensely tactile and audio-visual, enriched by complex soundscapes that awaken the invisible, immeasurable space beyond the frame, animating and decentering the dynamically abstract mise-en-scene favored by both filmmakers. Despite their relatively small respective oeuvres—to date Martel has completed three features, Viegas just one—their every film is career defining and milestone. Indeed, with each work Viegas and Martel define a new paradigm of narrative cinema, a different means of reaching far beyond mere representation and story to open the all too often untapped phenomenological...

It all begins with a freeze frame of a dirt road somewhere in Yorkshire county, lined with trees whose lush foliage converges above in an arch. What could it be if not a portal? The movie itself, meanwhile, has not even started as we watch the opening credits, encased in large old-fashioned frames, slowly fade away—a device consistently favored by Alain Resnais who opened each of his 19 features likewise, holding off the films themselves until the screen no longer contained any visual surplus. The freeze frame comes to life as the camera pans farther down the road; then we find ourselves in a theatrical set.

We have been here before, of course. Resnais' Smoking/No Smoking, also based on a play by British playwright Sir Alan Ayckbourn, is set in Yorkshire as well. Life of Riley (Aimer, boire et chanter) borrows from the five-hour diptych its theatrical setting, one...

MoMI (Museum of Moving Image) presents First Look, a bona fide film series showcasing new works by established filmmakers and first timers alike from all corners of the globe, carefully selected by the esteemed curatorial staff (critic Denis Lim, David Schwartz and Aliza Ma). Quietly nestled in post-New Year hangover days with crazy award season just around the corner.First Look is fast becoming one of the most sought after film series in New York City. The series runs from January 9 - 19.This is where I first saw Chantal Akerman's gorgeous new film Almayer's Folly and Philippe Grandrieux's loving documentary, It May Be That Beauty Has Strengthened Our Resolve: Masao Adachi, on the Japanese New Wave great Masao Adachi in its inaugural edition two years...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

Looking back at 2012 on what films moved and impressed us, it is clear that watching old films is a crucial part of making new films meaningful. Thus, the annual tradition of our end of year poll, which calls upon our writers to pick both a new and an old film: they were challenged to choose a new film they saw in 2012—in theaters or at a festival—and creatively pair it with an old film they also saw in 2012 to create a unique double feature.

All the contributors were asked to write a paragraph explaining their 2012 fantasy double feature. What's more, each writer was given the option to list more pairings, with or without explanation, as further imaginative film programming we'd be lucky to catch in that perfect world we know doesn't exist but can keep dreaming of every time we go to the movies.

How would you program some...