[KineJapan] Iwanami Productions retrospective at Ill cinema ritirovato

[Alexander Jacoby]

Dear Quentin,

Thanks for drawing attention to our Iwanami programme at Bologna. Johan and
I had meant to announce it on this list, and the complications and
convolutions of the COVID era distracted us! Apologies to any who weren't
apprised of it and might have gone.

For us, Iwanami seemed a very logical starting point for the exploration of
Japanese documentary, since it fostered the careers of some really
significant directors who went on to have extensive careers, either
continuing in documentary or moving towards fiction film (or, in the case
of Hani, something in between). Personally I think Kaiheki / The Sea Wall
is some kind of masterpiece - and I think it was the film that seemed to
impress the Bologna audience most thoroughly - perhaps due to
the excellent quality of the 35mm colour / widescreen print. (When we
consulted KineJapan's always helpful Markus Nornes about our plans for this
programme, one piece of advice he gave us was "Make sure you show Kaiheki
on 35mm"!).

I might take the opportunity to correct one statement you made - I don't
think it can be said we "mostly" focused on Sumiko Haneda, since we only
showed two of her films - along with one by Toshie Tokieda, one by Kazuo
Kuroki, and three by Susumu Hani. Although it was a relatively small
programme, we thought we covered quite a decent range of the company's
typical output: educational film, sociopolitical commentary, film about
cultural heritage, promotional film.

But anyway, thanks for drawing attention, belatedly, to this show. We also
mounted a small follow-up to last year's Kawashima programme - two recent
restorations of Daiei films (Temple of Wild Geese / Gan no tera and Elegant
Beast / Shitoyakana kemono) seemed to go down well.

ALEX










On Sat, 31 Jul 2021 at 08:17, quentin turnour via KineJapan <
kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu> wrote:

> I might have missed something, but has what the Ill cinema ritrovato,
> Bologna go-to-for-Japanese screen heritage team of Jacoby and Nordstrom are
> doing this year already been mentioned on the listserv. Or is it that
> Bologna is out of bounds again for many of us. So it's been overlooked?
>
>
> https://festival.ilcinemaritrovato.it/en/sezione/iwanami-productions-il-vero-giappone/
>
> Alexander and Johan have been mining Japanese archival sources for Ill
> cinema ritrovato for a while now. But this is the first time I think
> they've done a strand on documentary. And its perhaps not the most obvious
> choice to make as an entry point into classic Japanese documentary, leaping
> over the most likely subjects and (mostly) focusing on the work of
> pioneering woman director Haneda Sumiko, with a few other minor classics
> of post-war sponsored Japanese documentary slipped in, such as Kuroki
> Kazuo's KAIHEKI/THE SEA WALL.
>
> Ill cinema retrovato started a streaming strand last year, and are running
> it again this year. But its pale compared to the live program. But no
> doubt due to rights issues, or that titles have never been digitised. The
> later is the case wth the Iwanami titles; Alex and Johan have burrowed
> fairly deep in the NAJ and Japan Foundation's probably now little-used
> 'Culture Film' 35mm collection. Marcus and others here have written about
> Sumiko and some of these filmmakers in English, and a few interviews turn
> up in translation in old back issues of Documentary Box. But these films
> are not easily seen. I caught KAIHEKI at a Yamagata screening once, but
> have to confess that's all I've seen (although no doubt someone may know
> of on-line sources).
>
> I wonder how often any sort of Japanese documentary heritage retrospective
> has been run in Italy? In the Udine Far East festival? (Matteo Boscarol
> might know this).
>
> There is a conversation about the program series that can be accessed
> here: THE REAL JAPAN: THE DOCUMENTARIES OF IWANAMI PRODUCTIONS (0) - Il
> Cinema Ritrovato
> <https://www.mymovies.it/ondemand/35-cinema-ritrovato/movie/8959-the-real-japan--the-documentaries-br---of-iwanami-productions/>.
> But you'll have to go the E50 festival streaming fee to have a look. Maybe
> see if there are any other titles in the streaming line up of interest. A
> restoration of US documentary filmmaker James Blue's early French dramatic
> feature LES OLIVERS DE LA JUSTICE might interest to readers here, or
> restorations of Govindan Arvindan's KUMATTY or some of Lionel Rosgin's key
> films.
>
> Quentin Turnour
> National Archives of Australia/ Cinema Reborn Film Festival, Sydney.
>
>
>
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