Exploding Cinema Rotterdam: Did everyone already get this?

Tue Dec 21 04:54:58 EST 1999

Sorry, I can't remember if this has already been?sent out on the KineJapan
list, but?even if it has, its worth a second look. 
If any Nederlanders care to meet up there, just drop me an email,
?
Jasper
?
?
Press release
UPDATE December 13, 1999

Exploding Cinema, section of the International Film Festival Rotterdam, 29th
edition, January 26 - February 6, 2000

For the year 2000, the International Film Festival Rotterdam expects to
build upon
the more than 300,000 admissions of 1999 and once again will offer a diverse
and
adventurous programme with more than 200 films and digital features plus
many shorts and, in addition in its prize winning Exploding Cinema section,
an 'explosion' of new directions for the moving image.

TECH.POP.JAPAN
As part of the Japan programme of the festival, Exploding Cinema will
concentrate on the crossovers between animation, online, art, design,
videogames and the moving image. As Tokyo is steeped in mass culture,
created and consumed by the masses, media evolves with the increase of
information and the wider distribution of information. Visual media and
visual information develop, they all diffuse a quantity of mass media.
Everyday life is filled with visual information, in games, advertisements,
the internet and the streets; Tokyo artists and filmmakers have developed a
hybrid language and special aesthetics. The programme shows that Japanese
pop culture is an urban and media-informed culture where the boundaries
between high culture, mass culture, and subculture have become excitingly
blurred. The programme offers a cut and paste of moving images, music, pop
culture, interactive media and art. 
Special features of the Tech.Pop.Japan include:

JAPANESE MEDIAPOP LOUNGE
A 50's cinema will be redesigned as a Japanese media-culture lounge where
people can listen to Japanese DJ's, watch films, play games, experience
screen based art, have drinks, eat sushi and read books and magazines from
Japan. 
In the lounge will be shown:
Interactive installations: featuring Kage Kage, with wich you can sent
animations to eachother, is conceived as an attempt to recognize, objective
reality in our media society by the use of shadows. Discoder, 'messing' with
the internet metastructure. Ages5& Up, presenting interactive new music and
moving image, resamplingTokyo from Geert Mul. Digitalogue's floppy gallery,
Although it is an independent company, Digitalogue possesses great influence
over the Japanese multimedia industry, continuing to expand the bounderies
of art on CD-Rom. For Exploding Cinema they have provided a floppy gallery,
presenting digital art on designed floppies. Make your own animation with
Bithike. Also Tokyo Techno Tourism, an exhibition of Japanese videogames,
explicitly aimed at both traditional users as youngsters and families and
the variety of grown-ups whose lives and occupations are - everyday more -
affected by having to sort out reality and simulation. The games take
visitors on a tour of Techno-Media city Tokyo, navigated by video games. You
can have a fight downtown, drive a car on the Metropolitan Express Way or
attend a dance contest in the nightlife area. Games as Bust a Groove,
Godzilla and Doshin the GIANTwill be shown.
Screen based art: a selection of CD-Roms produced by Digitalogue, the first
digital art gallery in Japan, like Urban Feedback Tokyo, Gasbook, Reactive
Book series, a selection of E'Zines , like Shift. And you can have a pet
deliver your email by PostPet software.
Mobile devices: such as the Wearable PC and the Lovegety, find a person to
dance, go to the movies, have a talk or have sex.
Arcade games: the new breed of melodic non-violent games appeals to
different class of players to the prevailing driving and shooting titles. 
Dancing Stage, the first dancing game ever and an ingenious cross between
Twister and Saturday Night Fever. Guitar Freak, challenge a partner to the
music technique test. Beatmania, a simulation turntable and keyboard where
you can remix music recorded by local musicians in New York.

FILM PROGRAMMES
Graphic Japan
Desktop Publishing has developed rapidly in recent years into Desktop
Directing. Graphic designers, film and video-makers and animators all work
with the same equipment and software; this serves to increase the influence
of graphic design on cinema. Filmmakers go in search of a new visual
language in which graphics, text, animation and video are used side-by-side
and interspersed. Artists include 
Imaitoonz, Kodama Kenichi, Machira Ukawa, Bak Shuk and Towa Tei.
Retrospective Mamoru Oshii
Retrospective of Japanese TV series, manga and cartoons directed by Oshii
Mamuro, who is one of the most important directors of Japanese manga, the
skillful blending of drawn animation and computer-generated imagery. Oshii
was responsible for the enormously successful Patlabor anime series. He has
set new standards in animation, combining state-of-the-art computer graphics
with traditional cel techniques. Oshii directs with a staccato rhythm,
alternating sequences of rapid-fire action (car chases, gun battles,
explosions) with static dialogue scenes that allow the characters to sort
out the vaguely mystical and rather convoluted plot. Amongst others will be
shown Gost in the Shell and Ghingro.
Japan Edge
Hosted by Carl Gustav Horn and Patrick Macias, the co-authors of the book
Japan Edge - The Insider's Guide to Japanese Pop Subculture this program
will give a sense of the real power and pleasure you can have from Japanese
animation by revealing the revolutionary moments in anime leading to today's
cutting edge and the exciting but threatening future. It will present a look
at the often-strange ways in which Japanese popular culture has influenced
and shaped Western culture and the world at large. Using a mixed-media
approach, the programme will make the argument that the interest in Japanese
pop culture aboard could be due to a phenomenon that the authors call Asian
Chaos.
E-animation
The program features digital animation films from Japan, such as new work
from Koji Morimoto (the animator of Akira) and Ikeda Bakuhatsuro.
Other films include Skip Race (Dai Ozaki), Lain, D, and 60 Minutes.

MUSIC/LIVE
There will be multimedia live performances by Japanese artists and
collaborations between film-makers, animators and musicians. 
Sublime, a night around the Japanese cutting edge label for electronic music
(also label for Ken Ishii), with amongst others Co-Fushion and Captain Funk.
DJ Krush, known as 'the turntable wizard' and figurehead of the thriving
Tokyo scene. His remix works stretches out from jazz to rock/alternative
acts, also his critically-acclaimed collaboration works with top
international Hip Hop and Jazz artists.

MASTERCLASS, THE FUTURE OF THE SMALL SCREEN
In addition to showcasing new directions in cinema and digital media, The
International Film Festival Rotterdam takes an active role in stimulating
new media developments. For the second time the Exploding Cinema organizes a
masterclass for film- and television directors and new media designers in
collaboration with the Stimuleringsfonds voor Culturele Omroepprodukties
(the state fund for cultural projects for broadcasting). Film, television
and new media directors work together for a week to investigate new creative
opportunities arising from digital media and interactivity, concentrating on
the future relationship of television and computers. Focusing on narrative
as well as non-linear programs, in fiction and documentary, the goal of the
masterclass is to identify concepts for programs that could not be made in
traditional media or on television alone. The masterclass will be led by
Dutch and international directors and mentors such as Toto Hasegawa
(interface designer) and Glenn Kaino (Commworks). The masterclass will take
place in Rotterdam from January 30 till February 3, 2000.

PANELS: THE FUTURE OF MEDIA DISTRIBUTION
Exploding Cinema will present a programme of panels and presentations in
collaboration with the CineMart for the professional film industry about the
future of distribution. Panels will focus on how the internet transforms the
existing media industries and who the new players are, showing new players
and networks that are 
entering the living room and the way they will deliver film and video. The
programme will ask questions like: what is the future of distribution? What
kind of new hybrid media forms and content experiences are appearing out of
this convergence, and how will that effect the way an audience interact with
content? Speakers are for example Robert Tercek (vice president Sony
Digital), Jim Banister (Warner Brothers Online) and Michael Nash (Madison
Project).

CINEMA WITHOUT WALLS
As usual the festival collaborates with other Rotterdam art institutions. 
The Kunsthal will have the exhibition Manga Manga!, the first manga
exhibition in the Netherlands, with art of Japanese comics, from January 22
till March 26, 2000. 
The Boijmans van Beuningen Museum will have an exhibition of work by Sharon
Lockhart, including her new film Theatras Amazonas plus installations by
Shirin Neshat, Fiona Tan (Facing Forward) and Tacita Dean (Bubble House). 
Witte de With, centre for contemporary art, presents 'Stimuli', exploring
levels of hallucination, ecstasy, trance and shock in contemporary art.
Included are film/video related installations by Nasrin Tabatabai and Bruce
Nauman. 
The Dutch Institute of Architecture (NAI) will have the exhibition; Town for
the Film, Japanese filmarchitecture by Yohei Taneda from January 21 till
March 5, 2000. 
Yohei Taneda is a film-set designer, whose work is exhibited for the first
time in Europe. It vividly reveals the new notion of city and architecture
depicted in Japanese and Asian cinema. 

On Friday January 14, 2000, there are press screenings of films from the
Exploding Cinema section and other work in the Filmmuseum, Vondelpark 3,
Amsterdam, starting at about 10.00 hr. The programme will be e-mailed to you
as soon as it is finished and can be found on our website,
www.iffrotterdam.nl. 

You can now subscribe to the Exploding Cinema mailing list by sending an
e-mail with subject SUBSCRIBE to exploding at iffrotterdam.nl.

The latest information about the festival and Exploding Cinema is available
on the festival Internet site: www.iffrotterdam.nl. The digital catalogue
with information about all films will be on line from mid-January. The
programme will appear in print on Thursday 20 January as a colour magazine
with de Volkskrant.

Note for the editorial desks:
For further information you can contact the festival press officers,
Juliette Jansen and Anita N?meth, tel: +31 (10) 890 9090, fax: +31 (10) 890
9091, e-mail:
publicity at iffrotterdam.nl

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------
As jpg-attachment with this press release you will find:
1. Still from Spidead by the Japanese MTV artist Imaitoonz (from the section
Film and Animation/Tech.Pop.Japan)

Links Exploding Cinema
Discoder http://www.exonemo.com/
Bithike http://www.iamas.ac.jp/~ryota99/temp/index.html
Tokyo Techno Tourism http://www.masyama.com
Digitalogue Floppy Markethttp://www.digitalogue.co.jp
Urban Feedback Tokyo 1.1 http://www.urbanfeedback.com
Gasbook http://www.shift.jp.org/gas/gas.html
re:Tokyo http://www.retokyo.com
Shift http://www.shift.jp.org
PostPet http://www.so-net.ne.jp/postpet/
Reactive Book Series http://www.maedastudio.com/rbooks/index.html
Dancing Stage, Guitar Freaks, Beatmania http://www.konami.co.uk/
Oshii http://www2.production-ig.co.jp/eng2/oshii.htm
Sublime http://www.fe.org/labels/sublime.japan.html
DJ Krush http://www.mmjp.or.jp/sus/djkrE1.htm,
http://www.sme.co.jp/eng/PickUp/DJ_KRUSH/

------------------
You can subscribe to the Exploding Cinema mailing list by sending an e-mail
with subject SUBSCRIBE to exploding at iffrotterdam.nl.
To unsubscribe from this list, please sent an e-mail to with subject
UNSUBSCRIBE to exploding at iffrotterdam.nl 

Exploding Cinema/International Film Festival Rotterdam
http://www.iffrotterdam.nl
P.O. Box 21696
3001 AR Rotterdam The Netherlands
tel 31 10 8909090
fax 31 10 8909091

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: imai-rgb.jpg
Type: application/octet-stream
Size: 515073 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.service.ohio-state.edu/mailman/private/kinejapan/attachments/19991221/6013c4c7/imai-rgb.obj