News

Anime distributor AnimEigo returns to anime's golden age in the 1980s as it announces the Blu-ray home media release on October 8th of Otaku No Video. The anime Ova spoofs the life and culture of otaku as well as the history of Studio Gainax and its creators.

The Inside Story of Anime's Late, Great Anime Studio!

Director Takeshi Mori (Gunsmith Cats) and the anime madmen of Studio Gainax (Neon Genesis Evangelion) gather with their friends for the most explosive club meeting ever! Bolstered by Kenichi Sonoda's (Bubblegum Crisis) charming character designs and the great Kohei Tanaka's (Gunbuster) rousing soundtrack, Otaku no Video bursts onto Blu-ray in stunning 1080p high definition! Featuring the original Japanese language with English subtitles!

The original anime club is back in session!

The year is 1982 – one year into the glorious New Anime Century! Unfortunately, college freshman Ken Kubo has yet to bask in the...

The 23rd edition of the Transilvania International Film Festival, kicked off Friday night with a sold-out screening of Dogman, the canine-focused revenge thriller by the French veteran Luc Besson, with Dogman co-star Jojo T. Gibbs in attendance.

Some 3,500 viewers backed Unirii Square in Cluj-Napoca for the start of the 11-day festival, which runs through June 24. The biggest film extravaganza in Romania, the festival is one of the premier events on the Eastern European industry calendar, with more than 200 films, exhibitions, concerts, talks and special events scheduled, and around 1,000 industry professionals expected.

Alongside Jojo T. Gibbs, most recently seen in Alex Garland’s Civil War, the TIFF guest list this year includes Italian filmmaker Daniele Luchetti (The Yes Man), who will be honored with the festival’s special award for contribution to world cinema; and Romanian film and theater legend Catrinel Dumitrescu (Aurora), who will receive the excellence award at the closing gala on June 22nd.

‘80s nostalgia is heading back to Netflix’s theaters with Milestone Movies: The Anniversary Collection – 1984.

The Milestone Movies collection will screen across three theaters: New York’s Paris Theater, The Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood and The Bay Theater in Pacific Palisades, Calif. Selected films turning 40 this year will play in Netflix’s theaters and the 1984 collection is also available to stream.

The Paris Theater in New York City will show blockbusters “Beverly Hills Cop,” “Footloose,” “Gremlins,” “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” “Muppets Take Manhattan,” “Natural,” “Nightmare on Elm Street,” “Romancing the Stone,” “Amadeus” and “Splash,” from April 12 to 18.

Indie and auteur titles “The Ballad of Narayama,” “Birdy,” “Body Double,” “Brother from Another Planet,” “Last Night at the Alamo,” “Love Streams,” “Moscow on the Hudson,” “Places in the Heart,” “Suburbia” and “Times of Harvey Milk” will be available from April 19 to 25.

In the Fantastic Journeys collection, “Dune,” “Fanny and Alexander,...

The Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme, the U.K.’s largest festival of Japanese cinema, will take to the road in February and March. Its 2024 selection is the event’s largest ever with much of it attuned to the theme of memories, times and reflections.

“The JFTFP24 delves into Japanese cinema to explore how memories are employed in the cinematic voices of Japanese filmmakers, from films where memories are a focal point to works where they play a subliminal role in driving or affecting people’s minds and behavior,” said organizers.

The festival will run Feb. 2 – Mar. 31 and take in 30 U.K. cities including Edinburgh, Manchester, Oxford, Orkney, Exeter and York.

Program highlights include: the U.K. premiere of “Shadow of Fire,” directed by festival favorite Shinya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo: The Iron Man); a new entry in Nikkatsu’s Roman Porno genre, “Hand”; visually stunning anime “Lonely Castle in the Mirror,...

Mubi has announced its lineup of streaming offerings for next month, including the exclusive streaming premiere of Lars von Trier’s The Idiots in a new 4K restoration, Céline Devaux’s anti-romcom Everybody Loves Jeanne, and Tyler Taormina’s Happer’s Comet.

Additional selections include three films by Wong Kar Wai, a Robert Altman double feature, four works by Jacques Rivette, plus shorts by Mia Hansen-Løve and Yorgos Lanthimos.

Check out the lineup below and get 30 days free here.

July 1 – Synecdoche, New York, directed by Charlie Kaufman

July 2 – 2046, directed by Wong Kar Wai | As Time Goes By: Three by Wong Kar Wai

July 3 – The Exiles, directed by Kent MacKenzie

July 4 – Ivansxtc, directed by Bernard Rose

July 5 – Un Pur Esprit, directed by Mia Hansen-Løve | Short Films Big Names

July 6 – Contemporary Color, directed by Bill Ross IV, Turner Ross | Turn It Up: Music on Film

July 7 – The Idiots, directed by Lars von Trier...

Cannes Film Festival head honcho Thierry Frémaux often likes to speak of the “Cannes family,” meaning the extended stable of international auteurs whom the festival helped discover, nurtured and has made regulars on the famed red-carpet steps of the Palais des Festivals. Today’s standard-bearer for Japan’s great tradition of humanist filmmaking in Cannes is undoubtedly Hirokazu Kore-eda, whose features have been included in the festival’s official selection seven times, a record for his home country. Incidentally, the leitmotif of Kore-eda’s work is also family — families broken, families in turmoil and families found. His most celebrated films at Cannes have all centered on the theme, albeit in various and inventive ways.

Like Father, Like Son, winner of the 2013 Cannes jury prize, told the story of two boys mistakenly switched at birth, the discovery of which — years later — confronts the parents with the agonizing decision of whether to...

Shichiro Fukazawa's story “Narayama” is a haunting tale of ubasute, an ancient practice in Japanese folklore of carrying an elderly family member to a remote area, where they are left to die. Fukazawa's short story has notably been adapted twice. The most popular and successful version is Shohei Imamura's “The Ballad of Narayama,” released in 1983, which was both a critical and financial success and is regarded as a classic. Yet, the first adaptation of the powerful tragedy that came long before is a film that is very different in style from Imamura's depiction but equally wonderful. That magnificent picture is Keisuke Kinoshita's “The Ballad of Narayama.”

on Amazon by clicking on the image below

By the late 1950s, Keisuke Kinoshita had made quite a name for himself, especially after having graced moviegoers with his powerful film, “Twenty-Four Eyes.” Around the same time,...

Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, the Belgian brothers who have directed a series of films notable for quiet naturalism, are a prime example of how at the Cannes Film Festival, familiarity breeds not contempt but contentment.

Year after year, Cannes puts the Dardennes’ films in the Main Competition; they’ve made nine features since “Rosetta” in 1999, and every one of them has vied for Cannes’ top honor, the Palme d’Or, with “Rosetta” and 2005’s “L’Enfant” winning and four others taking additional awards. The Dardennes now have a chance to make significant Cannes history by becoming the first directors to ever win the Palme for a third time.

If they win for “Tori and Lokita,” which premiered in Cannes on Tuesday, they’ll also set a new record for the longest time elapsed between Cannes wins, with the 17-year gap since “L’Enfant” breaking the record of 14 years between Shohei Imamura’s...

With offerings like Death Line and Stage Fright in their August lineup, Arrow's service continues to be a go-to destination for lovers of cult cinema:

"London, UK - Arrow Video is excited to announce the August 2021 lineup of their new subscription-based Arrow platform, available to subscribers in the US, Canada, the UK and Ireland.

The August lineup leads with the Arrow release of Noel David Taylor's bizarre filmmaking comedy Man Under Table, available exclusively to subscribers in the US, Canada, the UK and newly launched in Ireland. The feature debut from writer/director Noel David Taylor, who also stars as Guy, a beleaguered, hilariously obnoxious scriptwriter navigating his way through the chaotic indie film scene in a dystopian Los Angeles, Man Under Table world premiered at the Slamdance Film Festival and screened at the Chattanooga Film Festival. The film will debut on Arrow August 2nd.

Man Under Table...

Survivor Ballads: Three Films by Shohei Imamura is currently available on a 3-Disc Special Edition Blu-ray from Arrow Academy

Throughout the 1980s, Shohei Imamura, a leading figure of the Japanese New Wave era of the 1960s, cemented his international reputation as one of the most important directors of his generation with a series of films that all competed at Cannes to great critical acclaim. This exclusive box set from Arrow Academy presents restored versions of three late career classics from the legendary filmmaker.

Based on an ancient folktale, The Ballad of Narayama (1983) was the first of two works from the director to win the prestigious Cannes Palme d Or. Imamura s magnum opus depicts the members of an extended farming family eking out their existence in the mountainous north of Japan against the backdrop of the changing seasons before village lore decrees they make the sacrifice of abandoning their aged...

If you’re after real nonconformist filmmaking with a political bent, Shohei Imamura’s daring and often sexually candid pictures fit the bill. Arrow gathers three of his best from the 1980s, the international success The Ballad of Narayama, the stunning Hiroshima aftermath drama Black Rain and the largely unseen, often wickedly funny Zegen. Each is disturbing, politically pointed and relentlessly honest. Arrow appoints this three- title set with new expert audio commentaries and Tony Rayns featurettes, plus a fat essay booklet. Zegen, we are told, has never before been available subtitled in English.

Survivor Ballads: Three Films by Shohei Imamura

The Ballad of Narayama, Zegen, Black Rain

Blu-ray

Arrow Academy

1983-1989 / Color, B&w / 1:85 widescreen / 130, 125, 123 min. / Street Date December 8, 2020 / 99.95

Directed by Shohei Imamura

Films by the Japanese director Shohei Imamura have one thing in common — they’re as provocative as a slap in the face. Our introduction to...

Although his last feature “Zegen” was not quite the success production company Toei had hoped for, they, nevertheless, wanted to continue their collaboration with renowned director Shohei Imamura and gave him the opportunity to tell a story he had been thinking about for quite some time. Based on Masuji Ibuse’s novel of the same name, the project “Black Rain” was set in Japan in the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is a work which cinephiles, critics and film scholars alike often regard as an exception to Imamura’s work in the 1980s, as it bears more similarities to the features he directed in the 1960s given its radical imagery, tone and themes. At the same time, “Black Rain” follows Imamura’s concept of the period piece as a tale set in the past but which has a striking significance for the present, and even for the future,...

After the success of “The Ballad of Narayama” production company Toei, satisfied with the result of their first collaboration, wanted to continue working with acclaimed director Shohei Imamura, but it would take quite a while before he was able to take over directing duties once again. As film scholar Tony Rayns mentions in his introduction to “The Ballad of Narayama”, Imamura defined a period piece, if it should have any merit for the present, to have something to say about the present state of affairs. In the light of that concept “Ballad” can be read as a parable on the state of Japan at the time of production in the 1980s, whereas Imamura’s next film, “Zegen”, has been largely regarded as a comment on Japan’s aggressive imperialism at the beginning of the 20th century. However, there is so much more to say about a black comedy such as...

When asked by film scholar Tony Rayns about his take on the period drama, Japanese auteur Shohei Imamura said in an interview taking place during a retrospective of his work, that the story should present a certain kind of relevance to today’s world. You can see such a connection to a universal, but rather sad truth in Imamura’s original opening for his 1983 Palme d’Or winning “The Ballad of Narayama”, which was supposed to feature a sequence in which a family brings an elderly woman to a retirement where she, after her family is gone again, another woman of the same tells her she will never see them again, despite their promises of doing so. Even though Imamura would eventually change the opening of his script to an aerial shot of the mountain area where the story takes place, the theme stayed with the story, making “The Ballad of Narayama...

By Raktim Nandi

Shohei Imamura is the only Japanese director to see his films win the prestigious Palme D’Or twice. The first of the wins came in 1983, with “The Ballad Of Narayama.” An adaptation of Shoichiro Fukazawa’s debut novel of the same name, the film is a winner of several more awards and much acclaim, including three wins at the Japanese Academy Awards.

The story takes place in an isolated village in the 19th century. The senicidal practice of Obasute, the procedure of which involves carrying an infirm aged relative to a mountain to die, is an important part of the village traditions. In this particular village, one needs to turn 70 before being carried to a sacred mountain. Orin, played by Sumiko Sakamoto, is 69, and spends her time readying herself for the one-way trip. She is not afraid to die; tradition condemns refusal of the trip.

Survivor Ballads: Three Films by Shohei Imamura

On Limited Edition Blu-ray, 7th December

Based on an ancient folktale, “The Ballad of Narayama” (1983) was the first of two works from the director to win the prestigious Cannes Palme d’Or. Imamura’s magnum opus depicts the members of an extended farming family eking out their existence in the mountainous north of Japan against the backdrop of the changing seasons before village lore decrees they make the sacrifice of abandoning their aged mother on the top of a nearby mountain when she reaches her seventieth year. Making its HD debut, “Zegen” (1987) takes a satirical look at Japan’s prewar colonial expansion through the unscrupulous eyes of its flesh-peddler antihero as he establishes a prostitution enterprise across Southeast Asia. Finally, the harrowing “Black Rain” (1989) details the precarious existence of a household of atomic bomb survivors as, five years after being...

Saturday, February 23, 2019 at Japan Society

One of Japan’s most prolific independent animation artists, Tomoyasu Murata has steadily created breathtaking, boundary-breaking stop motion animated films over the last two decades. Inspired by the expressive power of traditional Japanese bunraku puppet theater, Murata’s films—at once tender, whimsical and mysterious—deal with themes of memory, absence and mujo (the Buddhist concept of impermanence) through the cinematic manipulation of his meticulously handcrafted puppets and fantastical miniature sets.

Japan Society is proud to introduce Murata’s work to New York City for the first time through the career-spanning program Tomoyasu Murata: Stop Motion Master, featuring the North American premiere of eight short films that range from the artist’s award-winning student work to recent projects that respond to the 3/11 Great East Japan Earthquake.

“An artist of great introspection and sensitivity, Murata makes the most of silence in his stop motion animation films,...