[KineJapan] BBC Radio 3 Japan focus - Rashomon, war, and idol culture

Fri Apr 27 12:58:18 EDT 2018

I thought this would be of interest to Kinejapanners, but BBC Radio 3 is currently in the midst of a season of Japan programmes, including a couple on cinema.

I know some list members have been involved in these. I myself was one of the pundits talking about Rashomon with Rana Mitter on the programme ‘Free Thinking’, which also included Yuna Tasaka and the proper writers David Peace and Natascha Pulley. The talk was perhaps more focussed on Akutagawa than Kurosawa and the international impact of his film – another 10 minutes in the studio would have helped.

The programme was broadcast at 10pm on Wednesday night, but is available as a podcast. I’m not sure where it is listenable to non BBC licence payers outside the UK though: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b01vwk

Coming up this Sunday at 6.45pm and similarly downloadable as a podcast after is the provocatively title ‘Japan's Never-Ending War’, once again hosted by Rana Mitter, about representations of war in recent Japanese cinema, such as ETERNAL ZERO et al. I was also interviewed for this one, as was Mark Schilling and (I believe) Adam Torel. I’ve not heard it yet, but a number of Japanese filmmakers are also interviewed, including Katabuchi Sunao, Harada Masato, Tsukamoto Shinya, and Arai Harahiko – so a very diverse canvas of opinions!

Here are the details: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b0wrpk

[https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/1200x675/p02jv56r.jpg]<https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b0wrpk>

Japan's Never-Ending War, Sunday Feature - BBC Radio 3<https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b0wrpk>
www.bbc.co.uk
Rana Mitter visits Tokyo to explore how Japan remembers World War Two today through movies

Carrying on with the film focus, they have also made available online another programme originally recorded 5 years back on TOKYO STORY, which features, among others, the actor Richard Wilson of ONE FOOT IN THE GRAVE fame: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03lnfss

[https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/1200x675/p01n7bnp.jpg]<https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03lnfss>

BBC Radio 3 - Night Waves, Landmarks: Tokyo Story<https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03lnfss>
www.bbc.co.uk
50 years ago this month director Yasujiro Ozu died after making 53 films. Tokyo Story follows an elderly couple who go to visit their busy grown up children and their widowed daughter-in-law. Rana Mitter presents a Landmark edition looking at this cinematic classic, hearing from actor Richard Wilson ...

There’s another ‘Free Thinking’ programme ‘Japan and Nature’, with Eiko Honda from the University of Oxford and Professor Stephen Dodd from SOAS, and one of the featured interviewees another film-related figure (albeit talking about her photography work here), Ninagawa Mika: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b01n2j

‘Free Thinking’ have also covered ‘Tokyo Idols and Urban life’, with one of the interviewees the director of the recent documentary TOKYO IDOLS, Miyake Kyoko, with whom I had the pleasure to sit on a panel at the University of Sheffield this year, when she was over for the Japan Now festival in the UK: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b01xk3

And finally (as far as I can ascertain), there’s ‘Supernatural Japan’, which looks at the post-Fukushima boom in ghost sitings, RINGU and yokai: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09zmvmm

Hope you all find some time to be able to check at least some of these programmes out.

Best

Jasper Sharp

[cid:eb1cf9cc-644c-4e98-ab1c-608485b5e231]

Aperture: Asia & Pacific Film Festival<http://www.day-for-night.org/aperture/> is a new UK-wide film festival co-founded by Sonali Joshi and Jasper Sharp and launching Spring/Summer 2018 devoted to the boldest and most striking movies from Azerbaijan to Vanuatu and everything in between.

The Creeping Garden<http://www.creepinggarden.com/> - A Real-Life Science-Fiction Story about Slime Moulds and the People Who Work With them, directed by Tim Grabham and Jasper Sharp.
Available now on Dual-Format Blu-ray/DVD from Arrow Films<https://arrowfilms.com/product-detail/the-creeping-garden-dual-format/FCD1435>.
The book, The Creeping Garden: Irrational Encounters with Plasmodial Slime Moulds is out now from Alchimia Publishing<http://www.alchimiapublishing.com/creeping-garden/>.
"A surprising investigation of perception, thought and life itself", Nicolas Rapold, The New York Times<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/30/movies/review-the-creeping-garden-on-the-wonders-of-the-slime-mold.html>.
"An out-of-left-field nerdy delight", John DeFore, Hollywood Reporter<https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/creeping-garden-fantasia-review-724416>.
"Strange, eccentric, diverting", Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian<https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/mar/09/creeping-garden-review-slime-mould-film>.

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