<div class="gmail_quote"><div>Dear everyone</div><div><br></div><div>Event Announcement about "Seasons of Magic Lntern 2: Japanese Educational FIlmstrips in 1950s" in <i>Films about Yamagata, </i>YIDFF 2011</div>
<div><br></div><div>Date: Sunday, Oct. 10 16:15 - 18:15 p.m</div><div><br></div><div>Location: Yamagata Museum of Art (<a href="http://www.yamagata-art-museum.or.jp/en/index.html">http://www.yamagata-art-museum.or.jp/en/index.html</a>)</div>
<div><br></div><div>Co-sponsored by Waseda University Collaborative Research Center for Theatre and Film Arts 2011 Research Project ' Empirical Studies about Alternative Practices in the History of Japanese Post-war Visual Culture: Focusing on the Revaluation of Filmstrips / Slide Media and the Verification of Their Cooperation with Cinema and Theater' </div>
<div><br></div><div>With collaboration by Kobe Planet Film Archive</div><div><br></div><div>Narrated in Japanese by Kataoka Ichiro (Silent film benshi) </div><div><br></div>Handout in English available<p class="MsoNormal">
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<div><br></div><div>Screening</div><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><b>１．Qu Yuan, the Patriotic Poet (1952) (Yu-koku no Shi-jin Kutsu Gen)</b><br>Production: Zenshinza Theatre Company Kinuta Yokocine Slide Company<br>Cast: Kawarazaki Chojuro (Qu Yuan / Kutsu Gen) Imamura Izumi (Chan Juan / Sen Ken) </div>
<div class="gmail_quote"><br></div>Guo Moruo’s <i>Qu Yuan </i>(1942) was one of a popular work of the anti-Japanese historical play during the Second Sino-Japanese War. In September 1952, the Zenshinza Theatre Company staged the first performance in Japan of the play, which was filmed and edited into this filmstrip version. The title roll was one of the postwar hit performances for the actor Kawarasaki Chojiro.<br>
<br><div class="gmail_quote"><b> 2. Green Peace (1953) （Midori-no Heiwa）</b></div><div class="gmail_quote">Plan and production: Rural Culture Association Japan<br>Support: Forestry Agency of Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry/ the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture/ Miyagi Prefecture<br>
Location: Tomino village, Kurihara country, Miyagi prefecture<br>Cast: People from Tomino village<br>Original story: The Greenery Club of Tomino junior high school<br>Dramatization: Shirahama Kenichiro<br>Direction: Yamada Tamio<br>
Shooting: Shima Minao<br>Production: Ukita Saburo<br><div><br></div>A filmstrip depicting a reforestation campaign waged by junior-high school students in Tomino Village, Miyagi Prefecture. The story is based on real events and features the students on location in their village. This filmstrip was produced by the Rural Cultural Association (Nobunkyo). Since the wartime, Nobunkyo had produced many filmstrips and slides aimed at providing cultural enrichment and entertainment in the rural villages of Japan.<br>
<br><b>3. The Mountains Belong to Us (circa 1954) (Yama-wa Ore-tachi no Mono-da)</b><br>Production: Okutama Mountain Village Campaign Group (Okutama Sanson Kousaku-tai)<br>Distribution: Nihon Gento Bunka-sha</div><div class="gmail_quote">
<br></div><div class="gmail_quote">In 1951, the <i>Sanson Kousaku-tai</i> (the mountain village campaign group) was established as a covert organization for the Japanese Communist Party, who was taking an anti-U.S. line by means of armed struggle. This group was dispatched to a mountain village in the Nishi-tama area to stop the construction of the Ogouchi dam which was regarded by the left wing communists at that time as a “military dam” built to supply power to the Tachikawa U.S. Base. They were also assigned to liberate the mountain village people from the rule of feudal landowners. This film is one of the few made that gives us a real concrete picture of the situation and the activities of Sanson Kousaku-tai. They were known to use picture-story show (<i>kamishibai</i>) and gento as well as printed material such au propaganda handbills and newspapers when conducting their cultural campaigning. <div>
<br></div><b>4. My Mother (1953) （Boku-no Kaa-chan）</b><br>Production: The Kawasaki Committee for Children in Tokyo University Settlement<br>Construction: Kako Satoshi<br>Cooperation and distribution: Nihon Gento Bunka-sha</div>
<div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote">Kako Satochi, who is still active as one of Japan’s leading picture
book artists, attended a meeting for the management of the Kawasaki Committee
for Children in the Tokyo University Settlement. There he tackled the creative
activities of picture-story shows and gento.<span> </span>At that time, the activists of the Kawasaki Committee for Children agreed on a policy that encouraged children to actively and autonomously get involved in the process of creating and screening filmstrips. They were encouraged by the movement to write about and record their life---a movement revived as a result of the success of <i>School of Echoes</i>.</div>
<div class="gmail_quote"><div><br></div><b>5. How We Fought: The 63-Day Struggle (1953) （Ware-ra Kaku Tatakau: Gekito Rokujuusan-nichi）</b><br>Production: The Japan Coal Labor Union<br>Distribution: Nihon Gento Bunka-s</div>
<div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote">This is a long filmstrip of about 90 frames in total, which records a 63 day dispute over the raising of wages initiated by the Japan Coal Labor Union (Tanro), it started on October 17, 1952. <br>
Focusing on two coal mines, the Fukushima Jouban Coal Mine, which went back to work as usual and dropped out of the Coal Union during the strike and Kyushu Kaho Coal Mine which continued the dispute with the help of the union members belonging to Tanro throughout the whole of Kyushu, this film sums up the events leading up to the end of the strike because of the Japanese government’s invoking of emergency laws which gave them the right to force work to commence on December 15 of 1952 and also made them accept the proposals for settling the dispute.</div>
<div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote"><b>About this program </b><br><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div>The Waseda University Collaborative Research Center for Theatre and Film Arts 2011 Research Project, ' Empirical Studies about the Alternative Practice in the History of Japanese Post-war Visual Culture: Focusing on the Revaluation of Filmstrips / Slide Media and the Verification of Their Cooperation with Cinema and Theater' (Research Representative :Washitani Hana) project team has researched <i>gento </i>(magic lantern, slide, filmstrips) material despite the regrettable situation of it being scattered and lost without any proper or systematic archives. We have done research into<i> gento</i> from the days of the occupation of Japan up until now, with the aim of making them open to the public. In the process of this endeavor, the team has found that the Kobe Planet Film Archive (co-sponsor of this program) has hundreds of<i> gento</i>-related materials which were donated from the former collection of the “<i>Kansai Gento Center</i>,” an organization selling and renting <i>gento</i> films, scripts and equipment. The Kobe Planet Film Archive collection includes a large number of independent <i>gento</i> films and scripts produced during the social and labor movements of the 1950s and 60s.<br>
<br>The five <i>gento</i> filmstrips shown in this program have been selected out of more than three hundred <i>gento</i> films/scripts from the former collection of the Kansai Gento Center, now preserved in the Kobe Planet Film Archives. All of them are extremely valuable sources that tell us about the missing links in the history of post-war visual culture and about the yet undiscovered contacts made between visual media and society. They are also vitally important examples of experimental works that sought out the particular and unique possibilities of <i>gento</i> that can no longer be regarded as just a simple and inferior substitute to motion picture.<div>
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