CALF Short Film Festival in Summer

CALF Short Film Festival in SummerNatsu no Tanben Matsuri/夏の短編祭September 3-9, 2011Eurospace in Shibuya is hosting the CALF Short Film Festival in Summer starting this Saturday night. CALF has lined up an exciting program of experimental films and animation including both established filmmakers like Masanori Tominaga, Naoyuki Tsuji, Takashi Makino and Takuji Suzuki as well as younger filmmakers...

Muybridge’s Strings Road Show

It’s an exciting year for animation at the NFB of Canada with new work by top independent animators like Koji Yamamura, Georges Schwitzgebel, Co Hoedeman, Paul Driessen, and the animation duo Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis.Koji Yamamura’s hotly anticipated film Muybridge’s Strings (Les Cordes de Muybridge/マイブリッジの糸, 2011) will be having a three week “Road Show” this fall at the Tokyo Metropolitan Photography...

Takashi Film Series vol.0

Five top experimental filmmakers named Takashi are screening their work at 3331 Arts Chiyoda in Tokyo this Sunday.  Takashi Film Series vol.0 will feature works by: Image Forum program director Takashi Sawa (circle him on Google+) Takashi Makino, an experimental director who studied with the Quay Brothers after finishing his degree at Nihon University (official website) installation artist...

Japan in Germany 4: Japan Media Arts Festival Dortmund

The Japan Media Arts Festival has been held annually in Tokyo since 1997.  Sponsored by the Agency for Cultural Affairs, the festival aims to promote the development of innovative media arts.  They accept entries from all over the world and award prizes in four creative divisions: Art, Animation, Entertainment, and Manga.  Last year they had a total of 2,645 works entered into the competition...

Japan in Germany 3: Nippon Puffed Rice Chocolate Squares

Nippon puffed rice chocolate squares are common sight on the chocolate shelves of German grocery stores and kiosks. Made by the Hosta company in Stimpfach, Schwäbisch Hall, the squares appear to simply be puffed rice covered in chocolate, but the ingredients actually include other grains or grain derivatives. The squares come in a variety of sizes and occasionally can be found in dark bitter and...

Overlooked DVD of the month - AMERICAN HARMONY

AMERICAN HARMONY is a lovely little documentary that follows a handful of barbershop quartets as they compete in the annual international competition in Indianapolis. I came to the movie with all the prejudice of one who's sole experience of barbershop was the satirical depiction of pretentious East Coast yuppies in TRADING PLACES. I had images of hearty East Coast brahmins, self-consciously...

Pictures at an Exhibition (展覧会の絵, 1966)

In 1967 Osamu Tezuka picked up his second Noburo Ofuji Award for his animation Pictures at an Exhibition (展覧会の絵, 1966). Among other domestic honours, this 39-minute film (33 minutes in its current cut) also picked up the award for Best Animated Film at the Asia Pacific Film Festival that year. The film is a modern interpretation of Modest Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” (1874), a suite...

IN A BETTER WORLD

IN A BETTER WORLD is a pretentious, po-faced drama about the impotence of liberals in the face of brutality. It works by inter-weaving four examples of bullying that affect an earnest Medecins Sans Frontieres doctor called Anton (Mikael Persbrandt).  In a medical camp in Kenya, Anton is forced to treat the savage gangster who has been brutalising the women of the village. He shows the...

A Mother Should Be Loved (母を恋はずや, 1934)

In support of the BFI, one of the many companies to lose their stock in the Sony warehouse fire in Enfield, I ordered their dual format edition of Late Autumn / A Mother Should Be Loved last week. A Mother Should Be Loved (母を恋はずや, 1934) is one of the few extant Yasujiro Ozu films that I had not yet seen. Although the first and last of 9 reels that make up the film are missing, enough remains of...