Art X War and Linda Hoaglund at FCCJ

[Eija Niskanen]

Dear all,

Tokyo FFCJ asked me to post this.

Dear KineJapanners,

Again, we have a sneak preview opportunity at the Foreign
Correspondents' Club of Japan.  Please email Karen Severns if you'd
like to attend.  The FCCJ is a private club, so a reservation through
Karen is necessary: kjs30 at gol.com

http://www.fccj.or.jp/node/5948

SPECIAL SCREENING
Followed by a Q&A session with director Linda Hoaglund

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 7 pm  20th floor

ANPO: ART X WAR   USA/Japan, 2010  89 minutes
In Japanese and English with English subtitles

Produced and directed by Linda Hoaglund
With appearances by: Tadanori Yokoo, Eikoh Hosoe, Hiroshi Nakamura,
Makoto Aida, Miyako Ishiuchi, Kikuji Yamashita, Tatsuo Ikeda, Tokiko
Kato, Mao Ishikawa, Shomei Tamotsu, Kazuyoshi Kushida

Film courtesy of Uplink

The Movie Committee is pleased to host this special screening of Anpo:
Art X War, and to welcome filmmaker Linda Hoaglund back to the FCCJ
for what is sure to be a spirited post-screening dialogue.

Hoaglund’s debut as director, Anpo depicts resistance to U.S. military
bases in Japan through a collage of paintings, photographs and films
by Japan’s foremost contemporary artists. The artwork vividly
resurrects a forgotten period of Japan’s history, while highlighting
the insidious effects of “Anpo,” Japanese shorthand for the U.S.-Japan
Mutual Security Treaty. The treaty permits the continued presence of
90 U.S. military bases in Japan, and 36,000 soldiers.

“Japan’s relationship with America has always been complicated,” muses
contemporary artist Makoto Aida, “always vacillating between love and
hate…” The film briefly surveys the contemporary impact of the 30 U.S.
military bases in Okinawa, where the Futenma base issue was a recent
flashpoint, before traveling back to 1960, when hundreds of thousands
of Japanese citizens from all walks of life came together in a
democratic uprising against the treaty. They were eventually crushed
by then Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, backed by the C.I.A. As Tim
Weiner, author of Legacy of Ashes: A History of the CIA, comments in
the film: “During the Cold War, the U.S. would work with any son of a
bitch, as long as he was anti-Communist.”

But the movement endured to resurface in protests against the Vietnam
War. It also left an indelible mark on the creative output of the
artists who participated, many of whom eventually rose to
international prominence. Anpo tells these artists' stories through
their paintings, photographs and films, most of which have been hidden
from public view for over half a century intercut with their creators,
as a representation of a still-militarized Japan reeling from the
psychic wounds inflicted by American occupiers.

Producer-director Linda Hoaglund was born in Kyoto to American
missionary parents and educated in rural Japan before studying at Yale
University. She is a noted translator and expert on Japanese cinema,
and has subtitled over 200 films, including celebrated works by Akira
Kurosawa, Hayao Miyazaki, Hirokazu Kore-eda and Kiyoshi Kurosawa.
Previously, she produced and wrote the documentary film Wings of
Defeat (2007), which received the Erik Barnouw Award for Best Film
about American History.


-- 
Eija Niskanen
Baltic Sea - Japan Film Project
Kichijoji Honcho 4-12-6
Musashino-shi
Tokyo 180-0004