Anyone into Japanese cinema knows that Mark Schilling and Marc Walkow have put together an amazing touring retrospective of films titled No Borders, No Limits: 1960’s Nikkatsu Action Cinema, which is also the title of Mark Shilling’s latest book. It’s going to be in Wisconsin, San Francisco, Boston, Los Angeles, and Columbus Ohio just within the next couple of months, but it won’t be until July when it will be part of the Fantasia Film Fest in Montreal. For all you Torontonians it’ll be just a five hour drive to see films like “Gangster V.I.P.”, “Plains Wanderer”, “Roughneck” and “A Colt is My Passport”…but what about a stop in Toronto?!?!? Hell-oooo!!!! We’re just the home of the biggest film festival after cannes! You’d think that someone would be able to pull the cash together to bring this fantastic series home to T.O.! And don’t look at me… The Pow-Wow has some lint balls and a coupel subway tokens in it's slush fund.
So, I guess here’s throwing the gauntlet down to someone at TIFF or Cinematheque Ontario or one of the great independent theatres in the city: You’ll have a sure fire hit if No Borders, No Limits is booked here in Toronto, a city that is crazy for it’s cinema.
Anyone? Anyone????
So, I guess here’s throwing the gauntlet down to someone at TIFF or Cinematheque Ontario or one of the great independent theatres in the city: You’ll have a sure fire hit if No Borders, No Limits is booked here in Toronto, a city that is crazy for it’s cinema.
Anyone? Anyone????
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2 comments:
Hey, Chris. Congratulations on the new blog, and great work so far.
Unfortunately, two less-than-happy comments about the Nikkatsu series.
Firstly, Fantasia will most likely be screening only one film from the series this summer. They're concerned about the costs of the screenings and that they won't attract enough of an audience to make them worthwhile. We might be showing two, but that would be the absolute maximum.
Secondly, we've repeatedly tried to place the series at the Cinematheque Ontario, but apparently they feel that the technical requirements for the digital subtitle projection are beyond them. It's actually a very simple system to use - all you need is a 35mm projector, a digital data projector and a laptop running PowerPoint - so that excuse has always struck me as a bit curious. But Mark Schilling originally approached James Quandt two years ago, after the series originally ran at the Far East Film Festival in Udine, and I tried via my friend Colin Geddes, and he didn't have any better luck.
If any of you Torontonians want to make yet another plea to the organizers of the Cinematheque, or put them in direct contact with me at marcwalkow@outcastcinema.com, I'd love to try again. We really want to bring this series to Toronto, but cannot seem to find a venue able to go out on a bit of a limb to accommodate the slightly non-traditional screening requirements.
- Marc Walkow
Let's see if I can shake their tree again, Marc. It's a bit embarrassing that we don't have this here.
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