nwFilmCenter

Japanese Currents

Like Japanese fashion and pop culture, Japanese film is in the international vanguard with a new generation of auteurs making their stamp on animation, short films, music videos and features of all persuasions. With their off-kilter takes on period genre films, super-kitsch imagery, digital wizardry and eye-popping animé, Japanese directors lead the charge to the cutting-edge of both commercial and personal cinema. Opening with Satoshi Kon's sci-fi animé PAPRIKA and closing with Takashi Miike's supernatural adventure THE GREAT YOKAI WAR, this eight film sampling offers a wealth of creative invention and a fresh cultural take on Japan today. Presented by the Northwest Film Center, Japan-America Society of Oregon and Portland State University.

Japanese Currents Festival passes are also available on-line. Please click here to purchase.

Thu, May 3, 2007 at 7 PM	PAPRIKA DIRECTOR: SATOSHI KON JAPAN Adapted from a science fiction adventure story by famed author Yasutaka Tsutsui, PAPRIKA explores a future world in which a revolutionary psychotherapy device named the "DC-Mini" allows users to cast themselves into the dreams of others. If Japan's most famous animé filmmaker is Hayao Miyazaki, (HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE, SPIRITED AWAY), the most sophisticated is probably Satoshi Kon (MILLENNIUM ACTRESS, TOKYO GODFATHERS), whose movies tackle the anxiety and fragmentation of Japanese life. "His new movie plays like a head-on collision between Hello Kitty and Philip K. Dick. . .a thrilling tour-de-force of visual invention – every frame is packed with imagination. This delightful movie is bursting with ideas about Japanese repression, multiple identities, collective dreams and the dark side of the country's love of Cute." —NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL ( 89 min ) The film will be introduced by Antonia Levi, Professor of University Studies, PSU, an anime scholar and author of "Samurai from Outer Space: Understanding Japanese Anime." Japanese Currents Festival passes are also available on-line. Please click here to purchase. ^ Top
Fri, May 4, 2007 at 7 PM	THE GREAT YOKAI WAR DIRECTOR: TAKASHI MIIKE JAPAN Yokai are supernatural beings from Japanese folklore that like to play tricks on unsuspecting humans. Eight-year-old Tadashi finds himself leading an epic quest when he is chosen as the next Kirin Rider, the defender of justice and peace, at an annual festival, and the previously invisible world of the Yokai reveals itself to him. Gleefully stealing from cult fantasy films such as THE NEVER ENDING STORY, LABYRINTH and THE DARK CRYSTAL, Miike offers a decidedly Japanese spin on children's fantasy, creating a world both dreamlike and dark, and full of bizarre monsters. "The film's hallucinatory, deranged fantasy is reminiscent of H.R. Pufnstuf—but for the spurting bodily fluids and mechanized robots with chainsaw arms that threaten little children."— Toronto International Film Festival. ( 124 min ) Japanese Currents Festival passes are also available on-line. Please click here to purchase. ^ Top
Fri, May 4, 2007 at 10 PM	MIRRORBALL: MADE IN JAPAN DIRECTOR: VARIOUS JAPAN Japan has always been on the aesthetic cutting edge, whether it be film, animé, robots, games, fashion or art. This program of short promotional films, music videos and animation blurs the boundaries between art and commerce and provides a dizzying bento box of experimentation and stimulating visual and aural creativity. With the likes of director Nagi Noda (Partizan Productions) leading the pack, the selections include the Video Victim 2 collection by teevee graphics; an excerpt from the hyper-crazed SPIT&YELL music film from Taku Inoue of p.i.c.s.; super-fresh tracks from W+K Tokyo Lab's Animé-hem for Hifana's latest Channel H; a great short RIGHT PLACE from new directing talent Kosai Sekine; and a wonderfully crafted and positivity infected promo from Caviar's Takeshi Nakamura in collaboration with Towa Tei. O-tanoshimini! ( 75 min ) Thanks to the Edinburgh Film Festival for organizing this program. Japanese Currents Festival passes are also available on-line. Please click here to purchase. ^ Top
Sat, May 5, 2007 at 1 PM Sun, May 6, 2007 at 4 PM	SPRING SNOW DIRECTOR: ISAO YUKISADA JAPAN Based on the famed novel by Yukio Mishima, SPRING SNOW is a tragic love story set in 1912 during the Meiji Restoration. Kiyoaki and Satoko, both from noble families, grow up together as best friends. Satoko gradually realizes her love for Kiyoaki and musters the courage to declare her feelings, but he breaks her heart with cold indifference. Devastated, Satoko agrees to marry the prince, as her parents have arranged, only to have Kiyoaki belatedly realize his mistake. Forced to stand against their parents and the court in a "forbidden" love, their fatal passion insures tragedy. Opulently filmed and loyal to the novel, SPRING SNOW offers a timeless meditation on romantic obsession and sexual intrigue. "Mishima is like Stendhal in his precise psychological analyses and like Dostoevsky in his explorations of darkly destructive personalities."—Christian Science Monitor. ( 150 min ) Japanese Currents Festival passes are also available on-line. Please click here to purchase. ^ Top
Sat, May 5, 2007 at 4 PM	GHOST IN THE SHELL 2: INNOCENCE DIRECTOR: MAMORU OSHI JAPAN Ten years after the success of his GHOST IN THE SHELL is its sequel, an intellectually engaging and esoteric vision of a technologically overrun society in 2032 Hong Kong. The line between humans and machines has blurred. Some have forgotten that they are human and others coexist with cyborgs (human spirits inhabiting entirely mechanized bodies) and dolls (robots with no human elements at all). A wave of homicides is striking at the heart of the city's political and financial elite, as mechanized "gynoid" service dolls begin turning on their masters before self-destructing. Special agents for Security Police Section 9 are called in by department chief Aramaki to investigate. Terrorists are suspected, but is the death of a wholly synthetic automaton any less significant than that of a cyborg with some vestiges of human parts left over? Melding the latest in 3D CGI with slick traditional 2D cell animation, INNOCENCE is a stunning visual triumph. ( 99 min ) Japanese Currents Festival passes are also available on-line. Please click here to purchase. ^ Top
Sat, May 5, 2007 at 6 PM	SO YOU THINK YOU WANT TO WORK IN ANIME? We welcome Portland animator Caroline Junko King for a look behind the scenes in the world of animé. After earning her MFA at USC, King moved to Tokyo and began attending animation classes at Yoyogi Anime Gakuin. After graduating she worked at Vega Entertainment as an animator and director for the weekly TV series "Doraemon." "I went to Japan thinking I was doing something crazy and impossible. In three years, I managed to achieve my ultimate goal of directing animé. I will explain the steps that brought me there, talk about the typical life of an animé worker in Japan and the work culture, and my bizarre observations made as an American." ( 40 min ) FREE ADMISSION Japanese Currents Festival passes are also available on-line. Please click here to purchase. ^ Top
Sat, May 5, 2007 at 7:15 PM Sun, May 6, 2007 at 1 PM	ALWAYS - SUNSET ON THIRD STREET DIRECTOR: TAKASHI YAMAZAKI JAPAN The winner of 13 of Japan's 14 Academy Awards (including Best Film, Director and Screenplay), ALWAYS uses digital wizardry to summon a 1950's Tokyo when anything was seemingly possible. The War is over and the future—spectacular new construction, material possessions undreamed of, and life choices many are too naïve to make—are at hand. Chagawa deludedly wants to write the Great Japanese Novel. Mutsuko thinks she's taken a job at an auto plant, only to discover that it is only just a garage repair shop. And then there's Hiromi who agrees while drunk to adopt a bartender's child. "Pluck and luck abound in this gorgeous period piece that feels like a Frank Capra movie if he'd been a little more cynical and a lot more Japanese. Based on a popular manga . . . you'll cry at the end, but you won't feel cheap about it."—VARIETY. ( 132 min ) Japanese Currents Festival passes are also available on-line. Please click here to purchase. ^ Top
Sat, May 5, 2007 at 10 PM	YAJI AND KITA: THE MIDNIGHT PILGRIMS DIRECTOR: KANKURO KUDO JAPAN "Nothing could possibly prepare you for this, the first-ever gay-samurai-road-movie-musical! Set sometime in between the Edo period and, like, never, it tells the dizzying story of two gay samurai who are just looking for a slice of peace in this crazy, mixed-up world. Setting out for the fabled land of Ise, where Yaji hopes his lover Kita can kick his nasty drug habit, the two proclaim (with the help of a legion of back-up dancers) that they were "BORN. . .BORN TO BE GAY!" And with that, their wild quest begins. It's a crazy ride, and their trials are many: mushrooms growing out of their faces, elephants with tasty fins and poisonous eyebrows, King Arthur's sword and gangs of celebrity-hunting school girls."—Vancouver Film Festival. ( 124 min ) The film will be introduced by Laurence Kominz, Professor of Japanese Literature, Portland State University, whose interests include parody and satire in Japanese drama. Japanese Currents Festival passes are also available on-line. Please click here to purchase. ^ Top
Sun, May 6, 2007 at 7:15 PM	HANA DIRECTOR: HIROKAZU KORE-EDA JAPAN Adding to an acclaimed body of films that includes MABOROSI, AFTERLIFE and NOBODY KNOWS, Kore-eda turns to a tender Samurai movie sharing the humanism characteristic of his work. In an Edo slum in 1702, laid-back Samurai Soza is supposed to be fixated on avenging the murder of his father. But instead of doggedly tracking his prey, he has his eye on the beautiful Osae and would much rather look for serenity. But soon enough the time for action comes and Soza must honorably rise to the challenge. Part Samurai movie, village comedy and melodrama, HANA is a warm, heartfelt examination of the true nature of heroism and both homage and counterpoint to the great traditions of Samurai legend and Samurai film. "Kore-eda sets his story in the margins of the (historically true) tale of the loyal 47 ronin, and edges into a John Ford-like perception that it's sometimes better to go with the legend than with the truth."—Tony Rayns. ( 127 min ) Japanese Currents Festival passes are also available on-line. Please click here to purchase. ^ Top