July 2011
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3rd Annual Shinsedai Cinema Festival: July 21-24
Escape the heat tomorrow for the opening of the 3rd Annual Shinsedai Cinema Festival. Programmed by Chris MaGee (Toronto J-Film Pow-Wow) and Jasper Sharp (Midnight Eye), the festival showcases the best of Japanese independent film. My must-see screenings are the feature length animation by Keita Kurosaka Midori-ko (Fri Jul 22 - 9pm) and the CALF Animation Showcase (Sun Jul 23 - 1pm), which...
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Sight & Sound article on Japanese underground... →
‘Theatre Scorpio: Japanese Independent and Experimental Cinema of the 1960s’ runs 12–28 July at the Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club over the next four Tuesdays in July. Related events run at Flat Time House and Birkbeck College.
The Art Theatre Guild’s 50th anniversary is celebrated in a retrospective at the BFI Southbank through July. Alexander Jacoby surveys the legacy of the ATG in...
June 2011
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July 30-31: Kanai Katsu Introduces The Kingdom in...
Kanai Katsu, director of The Kingdom and other amazing experimental films, emailed me to say that he’ll be attending a symposium in London as guest director. If you’re in the city save the date and be sure to check this out! He’s a legend of Japanese cinema!
The Art Theatre Guild of Japan: Spaces for Intercultural and Intermedial Cinema
A two-day symposium on 30th & 31st...
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“Keiichi Tanaami, dark magician of electric cinema.
Keiichi Tanaami, conjuror...”
– Introduction by Shuji Terayama
Exhibition Catalogue “Far From the Film - Keiichi Tanaami” 1975, Image Forum (Tokyo Japan)
Translated in A Portrait of Keiichi Tanaami 14 Films 1975-2009
April 2011
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KEIICHI TANAAMI ANIMATION RETROSPECTIVE...
TORONTO SCREENING
Saturday April 23rd – 8pm
CineCycle (behind 129 Spadina Ave)
$8 / $5 students
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Keiichi Tanaami, born in 1936, is one of the preeminent pop artists of postwar Japan, producing a broad range of works since the 60s including experimental film and animation, woodblock printing, illustration, and editorial design. Tanaami’s imagery is provocative and playful, rooted in the...
March 2011
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October 2010
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TICKET GIVEAWAYS!! Toronto Reel Asian Int'l Film...
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
The leaves have turned and spooks are out which means that the 14th annual Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival is upon us! Instead of candy, ANGURA! is giving away one double-pass to each of the following screenings. ————- GOLDEN SLUMBER (ゴールデンスランバー) | FRI NOV 12 | 10:00 PM...
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ANGURA! store page up and away
The ANGURA! store page is now up with a few items by the artist Daisuke Ichiba - limited edition prints by Halo Halo, and Ichiba’s newest self-published book Midaregami, which features reproductions of his recent paintings.
Check it out!
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September 2010
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Kanai Katsu's THE DESERTED ARCHIPELAGO (1969)... →
“The Deserted Archipelago” is a surreal political tale, a film entirely of it’s time. By the late 60’s and early 70’s the leftist student movements who had mobilized against the U.S.-Japan Security treaty, better known as the ANPO Treaty, had splintered and re-splintered into ever smaller and more radical groups. By the time that Katsu was making “The Deserted...
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Kanai Katsu's THE KINGDOM (1973): Review on J-Film... →
“The Kingdom” is the third film in Kanai Katsu’s avant-garde Smiling Milky Way Trilogy which began with two politically loaded films, 1968’s “The Deserted Archipelago”, a dream journey through the the post-ANPO Treaty 60’s, and 1971’s “Good-Bye”, an exploratrion of the plight of the zainichi, or Japanese of Korean heritage. “The...
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Experimental Films of Kanai Katsu - Canadian...
ANGURA! is very proud to present the Canadian Premiere of the work of Kanai Katsu!!
In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s Tokyo’s underground film scene fermented some of the most enlightening, kaleidoscopic, bizarre and pioneering visions. Names such as Shuji Terayama, Toshio Matsumoto, Takahiko Iimura and Nobuhiko Obayashi defined this avant-garde cinema, but one filmmaker,...
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August 2010
3 posts
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Puppet Master and Experimental Animator Kihachiro...
Kihachiro Kawamoto (1925 - 2010)
I first came across Kihachiro Kawamoto’s animation in 2002 when doing research for an essay on the folktale Dojoji, a story in which a woman spurned by a monk transforms into a white serpent and chases after him in a heated rage. The tale originated in China as early as 981 A.D. and reappeared throughout Japan’s history again and again in...
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Micro Interviews with 12 Japanese Animators
It’s been a great year for SECONDS UNDER THE SUN, a touring programme of short Japanese art animation I put together in order to get unknown or under-appreciated work in front of eager audiences. It has screened in Toronto and Winnipeg, and will be featured this Saturday in Montreal’s newest micro-cinema Blue Sunshine. SECONDS features 12 established and emerging animators that employ techniques...
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July 2010
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New indie DVD label CALF frolics in the green...
Nobuaki Doi read many minds when he founded CALF, an independent DVD label with a mission to connect Japanese art animators to their international audiences. The label plans to unleash the first release at the end of August with a starting lineup of Mirai Mizue, TOCHKA, Atsushi Wada and Kei Oyama. This is pure kid-in-a-candy-store news!
Check out the CALF website for more info on these amazing...
June 2010
4 posts
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Bigger, Better and Bolder - SHINSEDAI CINEMA...
If you don’t live in or around Toronto, you just might want to revise your summer plans and book a trip to check out this year’s SHINSEDAI CINEMA FESTIVAL: The New Generation Film Festival happening July 22-25.
For the 2nd year, programmers Chris MaGee and Jasper Sharp are bringing an amazing collection of films that span the genre spectrum and will be sure to introduce audiences...
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May 2010
7 posts
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EXHIBIT: Graphic Heroes, Magic Monsters: Japanese... →
Japan Society Gallery, New York — March 12 - June 13
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NIPPON CONNECTION REVIEW: Pyuupiru 2001-2008
Pyuupiru 2001-2008 (2009) | Director: Daishi Matsunaga
In the past few years there has been a global mania for both Japanese pop art and street fashion. Artists like Takashi Murakami and his Kaikai Kiki roster of talent, as well as painters Yoshitomo Nara and Junko Mizuno have had gallery shows around the world, while upscale malls to Paris runways have been the home to wacky Japanese inspired...
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Angura Sounds Series Vol. 1: Masayuki Takayanagi
For me, no one better exemplifies a life devoted to the dark margins of sound than Takayanagi ‘Jojo’ Masayuki. Although he is certainly a less romantic outsider than notoriously tortured saxophonist Abe Kaoru, Takayanagi was a screaming ghost, always a little outside the frame, but miles ahead of the curve. His fearless exploration of sound, always pushing against boundaries, always changing, put...
April 2010
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INTERVIEW: Artist and Animator Akino Kondoh
The work of many of the current generation of Japanese manga artists and animators is filled with instantly recognizable imagery. From the high-art/ bad taste aesthetic of Shintaro Kago, through the twisted kawaii of Junko Mizuno, to the pastel wonderlands of Oscar-winner Kunio Kato Japanese visual culture continues to be one of the richest in the world; but one woman’s singular artistic vision,...
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SECONDS UNDER THE SUN Screens in Winnipeg
On a steamy night last August I presented a night of short Japanese animation as guest curator for FILM FORT, a local screening collective. The venue was packed and I’m excited to report that SECONDS UNDER THE SUN will have an extended life as the opening night screening of PLASTIC PAPER: Festival of Animated, Illustrated + Puppet Film in Winnipeg, Manitoba on May 5th at the Park Theatre...
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“Humans simultaneously combine tenderness and violence. If you peel back the...”
– Daisuke Ichiba
http://tetorahidoro.xxxxxxxx.jp/
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Review: The Red Army/PFLF: Declaration of World...
赤軍PFLP・世界戦争宣言 (Sekigun-PFLP: Sekai senso sengen) Released: 1971 Director(s): Masao Adachi, Koji Wakamatsu Running time: 70 minutes
While “The Red Army/PFLP: Declaration of World War” is required viewing for anyone interested in Wakamatsu’s “United Red Army” be forewarned - it isn’t a history lesson, isn’t an objective documentary, isn’t a human...
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March 2010
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The Kazuo Hara Cure
‘When you’re making a film about people on the margin, if you don’t make a film that changes the way people think, well it doesn’t have any meaning.’
Watching any of Kazuo Hara’s films is difficult. Not in the sense that they especially defy understanding, but in all of them there are points when it is almost unbearable to watch the events on the screen without wanting to jump into action;...
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TOKYO ANIMA! Japanese Animation Festival (Mar... →
If you’re in Tokyo check this out (can it be true? It’s FREE!). 2 days of animation by 30 amazing Japanese artists. Hopefully we can bring some of these to Toronto in the coming year!
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COUNTER-PHOTOGRAPHY: Japan's Artists Today
March 5 - May 15, 2010 The Japan Foundation, Toronto 131 Bloor Street West, 2nd floor of the Colonnade www.jftor.org 416.966.1600 x229
Exhibit Info
The works in this exhibition are not intended to serve as documentary evidence for any particular reality. Rather, they are intended to reveal an aspect of reality that has become invisible, namely, “spirit”. These works constitute an attempt to...