Films about Yamagata
The Man Who Shot Godzilla: Honda Ishiro Centennial
Arise, Japan: Escape from Occupation
Iwanami Productions, An Overview of Social-Studies Films, and More
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Iwanami Film Works Special Program |
Seasons of Magic Lantern
Yamagata Household Cinema
Legendary Filmmakers of Yamagata: the Actress Yokoyama Rie
The Future of Yamagata and Film
Special Screening
Supported by Yamagata Prefectural Foundation of Lifelong Learning and Culture
Cooperation: Documentary Film Preservation Center
The Pleasure of Finding, the Pleasure of Screening, the Pleasure of Viewing
This is the third time I have been involved with the Films about Yamagata program. As soon as the 2009 festival ended, I began looking for films for the next festival. With several themes in mind, I visited people, tracked down companies, and found films.
One of those films is This Land is Mine. During the Natco Hour program in the previous festival, a scholar told me that the film might have been shot on location in Yamagata. Also, the film hadn’t yet been found, he said. I searched throughout the prefecture, but no one seemed to know. But in making the rounds, I was fortunate to encounter the films kept by the son of Shu Taguchi. It may be a modest discovery, but I look forward to sharing with everyone the pleasure of being able to view these films on the screen.
We’ll also carry on from the last festival and explore the documentary spirit of the director Honda Ishiro (born in Tsuruoka City), who was influenced by Robert Flaherty’s Man of Aran (1934); this year is the 100th anniversary of his birth. We’ll present an array of films that were made for magic-lantern screenings, which rivaled the Natco screenings for popularity in the early postwar period. As fall shadows grow, the flickering light of the magic lantern will glow with warmth and nostalgia, as actors read the accompanying scripts. And we’ll continue our series of film personalities from Yamagata: this year Yokoyama Rie (born in Yamagata City), the heroine of the 1969 Shinjuku intellectual underground, makes an appearance.
It is a full program, rich in diversity. And don’t miss the young talent on display in the Future of Yamagata and Film program.
Tomitsuka Masaki