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<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Hello film fans</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Yesterday Japanese ( independent- ) film
critic</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>and part-time actor Shiota Tokitoshi held a lecture
<BR>about the modern </FONT><FONT face=Arial>independent Japanese film
in</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Munich.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>The main goal of his lecture was to show to the
German</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>audience that there also are other movies than
the</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>ones made by Kurosawa Akira and Ozu, so he
introduced</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>films of Miike ( Dead or Alive 2 ), Tsukamoto ( Tetsuo )
and</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>other young film makers. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Half of the audience were young students, who really
enjoyed</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>the films and lecture.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>But it seemed to me that the other half of the audience
was not ...</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>ahm ... "prepared" for this kind of movies.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Originally this lecture was part-sponsored by the
"German-</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Japanese Society of Bavaria", where mostly 50-70
years</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>old Ikebana- and Kimono-loving Germans are
members.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>So in the discussion with Shiota there came </FONT><FONT
face=Arial>questions like:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>"Aren't there any serious movies in modern Japan
?"</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>"Which type of people do watch those movies ?" and so
on.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>I don't know how it is in other countires, but here in
Munich</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>especially for the quite "aged" audience Japanese film
still</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>means Samurai and Geishas, or storyless
family-dramas.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>The independent film only has succes with the young
ones</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>here.... sadly enough.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Sven Koerber</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Univ. of Munich, </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Japanese Studies</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial><A
href="http://mitglied.lycos.de/popular_japan">http://mitglied.lycos.de/popular_japan</A></FONT></DIV>
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