[KineJapan] Ogawa in Paris

Japanese Cinema Discussion Forum via KineJapan kinejapan at lists.osu.edu
Sun Apr 29 22:02:02 EDT 2018


I thought I'd report from Paris, where a near-complete retrospective of
Ogawa Pro's filmography just ended. The first half of the films was
featured at Cinéma du Réel, and Jeu de Paume picked it up at Heta Buraku
and ran until nearly the end of April.

I was on hand for the first half, doing a dozen film introductions and
three big lectures. I noticed many of the same faces from screening to
screening. People there were captivated. Many had come from other countries
just to see the films. They were lucky. Programmer Ricardo Matos Cabo
worked very hard to find the best prints available, so almost all the films
were shown on 16mm. The festival and museum also collaborated on new French
subs for four or five of the films. I could tell they put the original
English subs to shame.

I met some very interesting people in the audience. The most memorable was
a woman who had protested at Sanrizuka. She had been in China with Ivens,
and then dropped in Japan to see what was happening (and Sanrizuka was a
happening place to say the least). She had seen a handful of the Sanrizuka
films in seminars with Jean Rouch. He would bring in a Japanese person to
interpret over the soundtrack. How he got the prints, and where they are
today, remain a mystery. Ricardo researched the latter and hit a brick wall.

The event was a great success. In fact, I heard that CdR was a little
bummed that, despite this being their 40th anniversary, the press coverage
was being dominated by the Ogawa retrospective—even in other countries like
Italy and Portugal. Cahiers du Cinema devoted a 5-page spread to the event.

I'm attaching a notable article from Liberation. The editing here was
fascinating. This Ogawa Retrospective coincided with the government's
capitulation at Notre Dame, where there has been a major anti-airport
struggle for nearly a couple decades (the airport project was announced
around half a century ago). The protesters set up camps and have been
squatting on the construction site and protesting since the project took on
steam after the turn of the century.

I first heard about this French airport protest last year, when I was
introducing Ogawa Pro films at the ICA in London. A group of protesters
from Notre Dame showed up to watch the Sanrizuka Series. They had pretty
amazing perspectives on the films, as you can imagine.

So it seems there was a major capitulation by the government when the
Ogawa series
started up. And La Libération ran a striking front page on Notre Dame
situation. Open up the paper, and there was a three-page spread on Ogawa.
It was clever editing for sure.



Just after returning from Japan, however, I heard that the construction
site for invaded by riot police. They destroyed the entire camp, people's
house, farms, and hurt people [https://zad.nadir.org/spip.php?article5445].
The pictures the NYT ran looked uncomfortably close to Sanrizuka.

Finally, an amazing coda to the Ogawa Pro retrospective. The Economics
University of Tolbiac was occupied by students at the beginning of April.
The students organized a series of talks and screenings behind the
barricades.....including *Forest of Oppression*, which some had seen at the
Cinéma du Réel. Things went wrong, the university was attacked by a group
of extreme right. It became violent. I'm told this is happening a lot in
France.

It seems Ogawa has never been so relevant.

Markus
---

*Markus Nornes*
*Professor of Asian Cinema*
Department of Screen Arts and Cultures, Department of Asian Languages and
Cultures, Penny Stamps School of Art & Design

*Department of Screen Arts and Cultures*
*6348 North Quad*
*105 S. State Street*
*Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1285*
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