Experimental Films of Kanai Katsu - Canadian Premiere

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, 74-year-old Kanai Katsu, has continued to labour in the underground. Since Kanai independently released a limited edition retrospective DVD box-set of his films his work is being discovered by a whole new generation of film fans and art enthusiasts.

On Friday Oct 1st, ANGURA! will be presenting a double-bill of two of Kanai’s defining films - 1969’s “The Deserted Archipelago” and 1973’s “The Kingdom”. Winner of Grand Prize at the 1970 Nyon International Film Festival, “The Deserted Archipelago” plays out like a fever dream of the social and political unrest of the post ANPO-Treaty riots that nearly tore Japan apart during the 1960’s. A lone man escapes a life of abuse in a Catholic monastery only to face male-pregnancy, insanity and a machine gun toting nun on his road to Japan’s Parliament building. “The Kingdom” encorporates surrealism and pinku eiga techniques of momentary flashes of colour footage to take us on one young man’s battle to fuse with the natural world and to conquer time.

PLUS! There will be a special performance by Toronto-based acousmatic / tape music / psychedelic duo GASTRIC FEMALE REFLEX between the films. 

Poster art by Private Press Printing

ADMISSION: $10.00 (includes screening + performance + 1 drink)
Doors at 8pm

8:30 -The Deserted Archipelago (無人列島), 55min
9:45 - Gastric Female Reflex
10:15 - The Kingdom (王国), 80min

(TTC Directions: Take the #168 from Dundas W Station or #127 from   Station and get off at Laughton. Walk 1/2 block west and go down the alley running north to the second door of the warehouse.)

To whet your appetites for this world of Kanai Katsu check out the trailer he put together for his independently produced DVD box set below.

-CM