Pordenone Silent Film Festival (Scheduled Japanese films)

[ReelDrew@aol.com]

Some weeks ago, Hiroshi Komatsu sent me a list of many of the Japanese silent 
films that will be shown at Pordenone this year.  While this is not the final 
list and there will be additional titles in the retrospective, among the 
films they will be screening are: MOMIJIGARI (1899); NIO NO UKISU (1900); 
TAIKOKI JUDANME (1908); NIPPON NANKYOKU (1912); a fragment from an 
unidentified 1915 film; SESSHOU NO MIYA DENNKA KATSUDOSHASHIN TENRANKAI 
GOTAIRAN JIKKYO (fragment) (1921); SHIGEKI NANKO KETSUBETSU (1921); 
KANTSUBAKI (1921); HOTOTOGISU  (excerpt) (1922); KOHITSUJI (1923); SOUTOU 
(1924); OROCHI (dir. Buntaro Futagawa) (1925); FURUSATO NO UTA ( dir. 
Mizoguchi) (1925); KETANIMURA ROKUSUKE (1926); NASAKE NO HIKARI (dir. Henry 
Kotani) (1926); BIJOUBU (dir. Buntaro Futagawa, Shozo Makino); CHOKON (dir. 
Daisuke Ito) (fragments) (1926); ARAKUMA DAIHACHI (1926); TENICHIBO TO 
IGANOSUKE (dir. Shozo Makino, Teinosuke Kinugasa) (excerpt) (1926); CHUJI 
TABINIKKI (dir. Daisuke Ito) (1927); DATEHIROKU MATSUMAE TETSUNOSUKE (1927); 
AI NO MACHI (1928); JUJIRO (dir. Teinosuke Kinugasa) (1928); TEKKENDAN 
(1928); FUUN JOUSHI (1928); RONINGAI (dir. Masahiro Makino) (1928-9); AKEYUKU 
SORA (1929); TOKKAN KOZO (dir. Yasujiro Ozu) (excerpt) (1929); KAIDAN KITSUNE 
TO TANUKI (1929); MORI NO KAJIYA (dir. Hiroshi Shimizu) (1929); WASEI KENKA 
TOMODACHI (dir. Yasujiro Ozu) (excerpt) (1929); ASHIGARU KICHIEMON (1930); 
ISHIKAWA GOEMON NO HOUJI (dir. Torajiro Saito) (excerpt) (1930); OATSURAE 
JIROKOCHI GOUSHI (dir. Daisuke Ito) (1931); BENI KOMORI (1931); EIKAN NAMIDA 
ARI (1931); KOSHIBEN GAMBARE (dir. Mikio Naruse) (1931); KOKUSHI MUSO (dir. 
Mansaku Itami) (excerpt) (1932); KUMA NO DERU KAIKONCHI (1932); TAKI NO 
SHIRAITO (dir. Kenji Mizoguchi) (1933); KEISATSUKAN (dir. Tomu Uchida) 
(1933); MUTEKI (dir. Minoru Murata) (1934); SANRENKA (1935); KODAKARA SODO 
(dir. Torajiro Saito) (1935).

Most of these films are being provided by the National Film Center, several 
by the Matsuda Company and some others by other archives.  Unfortunately, due 
to Shochiku's high rental fees, the studio's major silent features will not 
be included this year.  Still, I believe this will represent the largest 
retrospective of Japanese silents ever screened outside Japan.  And so 
extensive is the surviving Japanese silent cinema despite its losses with 
many missing films rediscovered in recent years (perhaps the most remarkable 
find of a silent anywhere is CHUJI TABINIKKI which was discovered in 1992 in 
the city of--Hiroshima!)--it's quite likely that this will be the first of a 
series of Japanese silent retrospectives by Pordenone.  I'm rather confident 
that, together with the festival's previous successful Chinese silent 
retrospectives, these Japanese revivals will finally establish the fact that 
the development of the silent cinema in East Asia is a major part of world 
film history.

William M. Drew