Kon Ichikawa's Musume Dojoji

[Catherine Munroe Hotes]

Does anyone know the circumstances surrounding the discovery of Kon 
Ichikawa's long lost puppet film Musume Dojoji?  I have been working on 
a review of it for my blog <http://nishikataeiga.blogspot.com/>, but 
have not been able to find out how the film was rediscovered.  The film 
is historically very significant as Ichikawa's first live action film 
(it's marionettes with a short animated special effects sequence) and 
the cinematography is spectacular. 

 When Cinematheque Ontario published its monograph on Kon Ichikawa in 
2001, the film was still considered lost and not even Ichikawa himself 
knew what had become of it.  The complete film, in near mint condition 
surfaced on Kadogawa Pictures' DVD Style of Ichikawa Kon: Art + CM + 
Animation 
<http://www.yesasia.com/us/style-of-%E5%B8%82%E5%B7%9D%E5%B4%91-art-cm-animation-dvd-%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E7%89%88/1011885495-0-0-0-zh_TW/info.html> 
released in 2008.  The accompanying booklet includes the complete 
storyboard that Ichikawa drew up with Hasebe (and kept in his own 
possessions), but there is no explanation as to where the film had been 
hiding for half a century. 

Rumour had it that it had been confiscated by GHQ, but I suspect that 
the truth is much more mundane and that it has just been collecting dust 
on Toho's shelves all these years.  An English subtitled version of it 
surfaced on youtube last year and was quickly taken down due to a 
copyright claim by Toho. 

Does anyone know how it was rediscovered?  I would also be interested to 
know if Kon Ichikawa found out that the film survived before he passed 
away.  He died in February 2008, and the DVD was released in November.

Sincerely,
Cathy Munroe Hotes
Nishikata Film Review <http://nishikataeiga.blogspot.com/>
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