A double bill of Koji Wakamatsu films come to Toronto's Projection Booth

by Chris MaGee

There are some Japanese film-makers who get a lot of play here in North America -- Takashi Miike, Seijun Suzuki, Akira Kurosawa, etc. Then there are film-makers who never seem to get the due they deserve here despite amazing talent and a significant body of work . In this camp one could easily put Shuji Terayama, Mikio Naruse and Koji Wakamatsu. A recent announcement here in our hometown of Toronto may be changing that situation for the latter film-maker though.

Recently the former Gerrard Cinema (1035 Gerrard Street East) has risen from the ashes and has been redubbed The Projection Booth. With the mandate of screening "Art - Schlock - Indie - Foreign" films the theatre has already posted an impressive August line-up at their official website. Included as part of it are the two latest films by pink film/ indie veteran Koji Wakamatsu. Starting on August 19th The Projection Booth will begin an exclusive run of both Wakamatsu's 2008 historical drama "United Red Army" and his 2010 Edogawa Rampo adaptation "Caterpillar". Both of these are award-winners and the latter features a revelatory performance by actress Shinobu Terajima.

Here's hoping that the screening of these two films will perk up Toronto film audiences' attention to the work of Koji Wakamatsu. To check out showtimes for both films just head here and download the PDF of The Projection Booth's August schedule.