Friday, September 11, 2009

Shohei Imamura comes to the UK this fall

by Chris MaGee

Jasper Sharp is a busy, busy man. He and I just finished working together programming the Shinsedai Cinema Festival here in Toronto and now he's back in the UK prepping for the 17th Annual Raindance Film Festival taking place in London from September 30th to October 11th, and now he's just announce a retrospective of the films of Shohei Imamura that he's pulled together, along with Patrick Crogan and Alastair Cameron, for the folks at Institute of Contemporary Arts in London.

Titled "Carnal Knowledge: The Films of Shohei Imamura" the retrospective will run from October 23rd to October 31st and will include such classics as "Pigs and Battleships", "Intentions of Murder", "The Insect Woman", "The Profound Desire of the Gods" (above), "Black Rain", and "The Eel".

Many of the prints of these films will also be screened as part of the "Pigs, Eels & Insects: Reassessing The Legacy of Shohei Imamura" symposium taking place at the Arnolfini in Bristol running throughout October (check out more details here), so it's good to see that Jasper and Alastair Cameron are spreading the Imamura wealth throughout the UK this fall. For those of us not in the UK check out the trailer for Imamura's 1989 film "Black Rain" below.

1 comment:

Katie said...

Damn financial crisis - I can probably only get up to Bristol or the ICA for one of these films. I'm thinking either 'The Ballad of Narayama' or 'The Eel'.

I'll have to save 'Black Rain' for home viewing - being a Yank, this topic is still too shameful for me to watch in a crowd (that will probably be partly comprised of Japanese folks). Though I will definitely watch it, because I know I should.

Thanks for the update about this!