[KineJapan] 100 years of Kinema Junpō

[quentin turnour]

UNOFFICIAL

 

The formal authority here should (more on that should in a moment) be the FIAF International Index to Film Periodicals. https://www.fiafnet.org/pages/Publications/International-Index-Film-Periodicals.html.

 

This lists the following still active journals, by longevity:

 

Variety - USA - 1905-

American Cinematographer – USA - 1920-

Radio Times - United Kingdom - 1923-

Architectural Digest - United States of America – 1925- (has published occasionally on cinema)-

Iskusstvo Kino - Russia - 1931-

Sight & Sound - United Kingdom - 1932-

Monthly Film Bulletin- United Kingdom - 1934-1991 (Absorbed into S&S)

Film-dienst - German Federal Republic - 1947-2017? (Unclear if this has ceased publication formally).

Télérama – France - 1950-

Filmcritica – Italy - 1950-

Cahiers du Cinéma – France - 1951-

Kwartalnik Filmowy – Poland - 1951-

Journal of Communication - United States of America - 1951-

Positif – France - 1952-

Kosmorama – Denmark - 1954-

Séquences – Canada - 1955-

Film a Doba - Czech Republic - 1955-

Gazette – Netherlands - 1955-2005

Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media - United States of America - 1956-

Gentlemen's Quarterly - United States of America – 1957 (publishes occasionally on cinema)

Filmrutan – Sweden - 1958-

Filmbulletin – Switzerland - 1958-

Film Quarterly - United States of America - 1958-.

 

 

.. except data reliability for the FIAF Index is (as FIAF would admit) entirely dependent on the institution-sourced indexing services that have been provided by its members since the project started in 1972. 




That’s patchy. For example, I know that Iskusstvo Kino has stopped and started a few times since 1931, whilst the Italian journal Black and White has been running since the late 1930s, but has only been published since 1970 according to FIAF.

 

Of course, from the pov of this group and this conversation, the startling absence is Kinema Junpo. Checking in on the FIAF Index this morning, I only just realised that this has never been indexed, nor any other Japanese publication apart from the probably unfamiliar to all HBF Newsletter (1997-2002) and Studies in Broadcasting (1963-1999)… although it does include the short-lived – 1977-79 – French journal Cinejap, which apparently was a specialist Japanese cinema journal published in French and English and which had people Tony Rayns  on its board: http://www.cineressources.net/ressource.php?collection=PERIODIQUES&pk=41.

Arguably, this reflects the old-school Euro-centric nature of FIAF;  most of the indexing work is done by European FIAF members, reflects their national cinema journal publications and that they were mostly subscribing either in their national languages or ones their staff could read. Other Asian national screen studies publications are also absent, apart from India’s Cinema in India and Cinemmaya, Singapore’s Media Asia and a range of hard copy, mostly now defunct Oz and NZ publications. The Index doesn’t try to catalogue on-line publications.

 

Except, as mentioned, the Index’s data is volunteered by its members. There are two FIAF members in Japan: the NFAJ (member since 1958) and the Fukuoka City Library (Associate since 2003). Both could have been contributing to the Indexing project in order to reflect the status of Japanese screen journals of record, but seem not to have been. I have no current access to the full index, which needs to be subscribed through the academic suppliers Ovid an ProQuest to confirm this. But it would be a question worth asking. Anyone tempted to email to the Index’s editorial team in Brussels to clarify the status of Japanese and Asian publications would probably encouraged to do so by the editors themselves, who are dead-keen to make the project better: pip at fiafnet.org

 

If I’m correct, I can guess why Japanese data is absent from the Index. It’s time-consuming work, the FIAF member libraries doing it are rarely subscribing in Japanese or have Japanese-speaking volunteers who can do the indexing and many FIAF members have been shedding their own paper library services and librarians in recent years. T




TheFIAF-member archives that probably should be undertaking this, the NFAJ has always been so chronically understaffed, journal subscription and indexing is a way-somewhere down-there priority. The Fukuoka Library archive probably doesn’t even realise it’s a thing.




But perhaps the new status for the NFAJ and the centennial of Kinema Jumpo might timely markers for a push to get Japanese screen publishing heritage indexed into an internationally visible form. Could be a collaboration with Kinejapaners?




Quentin Turnour.

National Archives of Australia.

 

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  On Fri., 12 Jul. 2019 at 10:26 am, Markus Nornes via KineJapan<kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu> wrote:   _______________________________________________
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