Films in Russia

[Aaron Gerow]

Some of the papers have reported that the Film Center has finally reached 
an agreement with Mos Film, the main Russian archive, to start bringing 
back to Japan the some 380 films (fiction, news, propaganda, etc.)--1600 
reels--currently held in Russian vaults.  Most were confiscated by the 
Soviets from Manchuria at the end of WWII.  A few have already come back 
to Japan, but the vast majority still remain in Russia.  In a six-year 
plan, the Center will bring back the films and gradually screen them in 
public.

The Center has been investigating the films for several years and there 
are few spectacular finds.  In several cases, the Russians just have 
better or more complete prints of films already existing in Japan.  Thus 
more complete versions of Makino Masahiro's _Onna keizu_ (1942) and 
Kurosawa's _Sugata Sanshiro_ (1943) have been found, and Ozu Yasujiro's 
_Chichi ariki_, which has only existed in a version with terrible sound, 
has been discovered with a good soundtrack.  But there are nonetheless 
hundreds of "lesser"--but still historically important--works in the 
collection that have otherwise been lost in Japan.





Aaron Gerow
Yokohama National University
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