Takamine Go series at Anthology Film Archives, March 22-26

[Wendy Dorsett]

Hi KineJapan members:
This is my first post to the list; my name is Wendy and I work at Anthology
Film Archives, where I do a bit of the programming.
I know many of you will be attending the Kinemaclub meeting, but before
then, and if you are not going, please check out our practically complete
retrospective of the films of Takamine Go here at Anthology, Wednesday
3/22-Sunday 3/26.
Tickets are $8 general / $6 students / $5 members.
Please feel free to email me with any questions.
Thanks,
Wendy Dorsett
Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Avenue NYC 10003
wendy at anthologyfilmarchives.org
www.anthologyfilmarchives.org

 ????????????????????????????????
Dream Show: THE FILMS OF TAKAMINE GO  March 22-26

Takamine Go?s films constitute a singular oeuvre, and a vital mode of
filmmaking that is at once political, personal, experimental and sometimes
narrative, but always underscored by a surreal, playful sense of humor that
destabilizes any polemics or over-seriousness. Takamine Go is from Okinawa
(formerly know as RYUKYU), and his embattled, occupied home is a thematic
thread that conspicuously runs through all of his varied work; concerns with
reversion of Okinawa to Japanese control (in 1972) are as often a theme as
are the implications of the American military presence. The films we will
screen range from early impressionistic Super 8mm films to 35mm narrative
features of the 80s, to his more recent video works, which weave fiction
with documentary and multiple narrative levels.
***DON?T MISS OUR SCREENING WITH LIVE MUSIC
 ON SATURDAY, MARCH 25 AT 8:00,
FEATURING Yoshiro Urasaki performing music of Okinawa& Takamine Go himself
doing live 8mm film projection!

Full details can be found at:
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/schedule/?festival_id=14

OKINAWAN CHIRUDAI 
1976, 69 minutes, color/b&w, video. In Okinawan and Japanese with English
subtitles.  
?I wanted to make a film that would show what it might be like if a film
from one hundred years ago survived the battle and was rediscovered. So I
rigged a homemade optical printer and tried to make that kind of film. What
I actually filmed were things like a farmer cutting grass and a kid
loitering around the woods like he had been possessed . . . In other words,
I imagined the daily life of ancient Okinawans who were free from outside
control, and wove it into a film.?  ? TG
?Wednesday, March 22 at 8:00

PARADISE VIEW
1985, 113 minutes, color, 35mm (Video). In Okinawan and Japanese with
English subtitles. 
Takamine?s first (and main) crossover ?hit? is a charmingly clunky,
radically political and coolly detached narrative feature. It includes
performances and music by Haruomi Hosono of Yellow Magic Orchestra, and 80s
pop star Jun Togawa.
?Thursday, March 23 at 8:00

UNTAMAGIRU
1989, 120 minutes, 35mm, color. In Okinawan, Japanese and English with
English subtitles. Film  print courtesy of Parco.
Another paean to Okinawa?s ?sacred indolence?, this reunites the stars of
PARADISE VIEW in a mythic/poetic social satire that plays like a full-scale
orchestration of the themes and plotlines of the earlier film. The original
Untama Giru was an Okinawan Robin Hood; the film?s Giru (Kobayashi) is an
exploited worker in 1969 who flees into the Untama forest after learning
that his boss?s adopted daughter is actually a crazed sow in human guise.
Also features a scene in which the ?Internationale? is sung in the Okinawan
language.
?Friday, March 24 at 8:00

PRIVATE IMAGES OF RYUKYU: JM / SHITEKI SATSU MUGEN RYUKYU: JM
1996-2005, 54 minutes, color, video. In Okinawan, Japanese, Lithuanian and
English.
This personal film was inspired by Jonas Mekas? visit to Okinawa in 1996.
Distinctive camerawork shows Mekas strolling along the seaside, through
towns and around a castle in the northern part of the Okinawan main island,
and scenes of screenings, discussions, and singing and dancing to the
sanshin (Okinawan shamisen).
?Saturday, March 25 at 4:00

SPECIAL SCREENING WITH LIVE MUSICAL ACCOMPANIMENT
by Yoshiro Urasaki
OKINAWAN DREAM SHOW
1974, 113 minutes, color, 8mm. No dialogue.
The film will be projected by Takamine Go himself, and will feature live
accompaniment on the sanshin (Okinawan shamisen)
OKINAWAN DREAM SHOW is a collection of darkly surreal and psychedelic
hand-processed 8mm footage of various landscapes (some populated, others
not) in Okinawa, cobbled together with various music, sounds and voice-over
narrations. 
?Saturday, March 25 at 8:00

KADEKARU RINSHO: SONGS AND STORIES / KADEKARU RINSHO: UTA TO KATARI
1994, 59 minutes, color, video. In Okinawan and Japanese with no subtitles.
A documentary composed of interviews with, and songs by, the eccentric
singer Kadekaru Rinsho.  Charming dialogue with the eccentric singer who
lived and sang like the wind.
With:
SASHINGWA (DEAR PHOTOGRAPH)
1973, 15 minutes, color/b&w, 8mm (shown on 16mm). No dialogue. Music:
Takamine Eiko, Takamine Mitsu.
?Sunday, March 26 at 6:00

TSURU-HENRY / MUGEN RYUKYU: TSURU HENRI
1998, 90 minutes, color, video. In Okinawan, Japanese, English and Taiwanese
with English subtitles.
?Takamine is still the poet laureate of everything bizarre and musical in
Okinawa and this ramshackle mix of separatist politics and conceptual
sexuality answers every question about the islands ? including the ones
nobody?s thought of yet.? ? TIME OUT FILM GUIDE
?Sunday, March 26 at 8:00

This series and Takamine Go?s attendance are made possible with the generous
support of the Japan Foundation, Tokyo.
Special thanks to Haruka Hama for generous assistance in organizing the
series and assisting Takamine Go, and to the Yamagata International
Documentary Festival.

Anthology Film Archives is located at 32 Second Ave. at Second Street and
can be reached by the Second Avenue F and V train or the #6, Bleecker Street
stop. 
32 Second Avenue / 2nd Street 212.505.5181
http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/