Akira Kurosawa Archives Project (press release?)

Alan Kita alkita
Tue Dec 15 17:13:19 EST 1998


The Akira Kurosawa Archives Project
Organized in Los Angeles by
Japan America Society
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences(tm) Academy Film Archive
American cinematheque
The Japan Foundation in Los Angeles

Four nonprofit organizations in Los Angeles -- the Japan America
Society, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (tm) Academy
Film Archive, the American Cinematheque, and the Japan Foundation in Los
Angeles are collaborating to establish the AKIRA KUROSAWA ARCHIVES
PROJECT.

The goal of this project is three-fold.

The first objective is to organizes a complete restoration of Akira
Kurosawa's filmorgraphy -- to strike new 35mm English-subtitled prints
of all 30 of his features.  This will require a fund raising campaign in
which all interested individuals and organizations will be invited to
participate.  Adminsitration will be provided by the Japan America
Society, in consultation with the Japan Foundation in Los Angeles,
American Cinematheque, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Sciences (tm) Academy Film Archive.

The second objective is to use these new 35mm prints to organize a
complete retrospective of Akira Kurosawa's films, which will play at the
most prestigious cultural venues in North America.  The American
Cinematheque will coordinate the retrospective tour, which will include
archives, cinematheques, film festivals, and other cultural agencies in
North America.  The tour will create renewed visibility for Kurosawa,
and allow national film audiences to see the complete body of his work
for the first time.

The third objetive is to preserve Kurosawa's aork for schoolars,
historians, filmmakers and researchers.  Toward this end the Academy of
Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences (tm) Academy Film Archive will retain
the prints after the retrospective for archiveal and scholarly
consultation and exhibition.

The project is of such importance that is should be realized
immediately.  The Kurosawa Archives Project will show that international
and community-based collaboration in the area of film can indeed work.

We expect the success of this initiative to be a model for future
projects, which will stimulate the restpration and collection of other
bodies of work by filmmakers, including Kurosawa's contemporaries and
successors.

The Honorary Committee of the Akira Kurosawa Archives Project is
spearheaded by directors Martin Scorsese and Sydney Pollack.  Other
committee members include:

Robert latman
Alfonso Arau
Warren Beatty
Budd Boetticher
Francisc Ford coppola
Richard Donner
Joe Dante
Jonathan Demme
Rotland Emmerich
William Friedkin
Cutris Hanson
Monte Hellman
Arthur Hiller
Ron Howard
Mimi Leder
Spike Lee
George Lucas
David Lynch
Michael Mann
Mike Nichols
Susan Sarandon
Ridley Scott
Steven Soderbergh
Steven Spielberg
Oliver Stone
Quentin Tarantino
Andre de Toth
Paul Verhoeven

This project has the full cooperation of Kurosawa Productions

Japan America Society
505 South Flower Street Level C
Los Angeles, California  90071
(213) 627-1191
Fax (213) 627-1353




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