Season: JFF Classics 2020

Provocation and Disruption: Radical Japanese Filmmaking from the 1960s to the 2000s

This year’s program celebrates boundary-shattering films through Japanese cinematic history, notoriously recognised for their offbeat, rebellious and eye-opening qualities. With a spotlight on some of Japan’s leading experimental filmmakers working within the zeitgeist of their time, this series presents the visually audacious and sonically shocking – from Japanese New Wave and avant-garde activity during the 1960s and 1970s to gritty cyberpunk and brilliant psychedelic expressions of the late 1980s and early 2000s.

Provocation and Disruption is all about the poetic, the abstract, the visceral and the abrasive in visionary Japanese cinema. The selection broadly encapsulates films that were fiercely uncompromising and transcended convention, each leaving its unique mark on Japan’s film industry. In their own distinct way, these cinematic works eschew traditional narrative structures and genre tropes to embrace distortion and symbolism. From dynamic and provocative colour, editing and camerawork to themes of social, political and sexual ferment, these films are nothing like you’ve seen before.

This free classics program is part of the annual Japanese Film Festival presented by The Japan Foundation, Sydney and made possible by The Japan Foundation Film Library.

Program

Emotion (That Dracula We Once Knew) - 5 December, 6.00pm

House - 5 December, 7.00pm

Funeral Parade of Roses - 6 December, 12.00pm

Mind Game - 6 December, 2.15pm

Image © 1969 Matsumoto Production

A Japanese Film Festival Event presented by The Japan Foundation, Sydney and the NFSA