Films from the Art Theater Guild screen this month at the Cinémathèque Québécoise

by Chris MaGee

The films produced by the Art Theater Guild in japan in the late 60's and early 70's have been having a bit of a renaissance during the past few months thanks to a few folks, namely University of Leeds' Julian Ross and film critic and curator Go Hirasawa. The two teamed up this past July to present the ATG Symposium at the Gordon Square Cinema on the University of London campus. From there our friends at VCinema have been blogging and podcasting about these groundbreaking films. It's enough to make us Canadians a little jealous that we can't get a look at some of these films ourselves. Well, now we can, thanks to the folks at the Cinémathèque Québécoise.

Between September 7trh and September 18th the Cinémathèque will be presenting "Radical Experiments: A Retrospective of the Art Theater Guild", a programme of some of the landmark films produced by this historic indie organization. Quebec film fans will have a chance to catch such classics as Hiroshi Teshigahara's "Pitfall", Susumu Hani's "She and He" and "Nanami: Inferno of First Love" (above), Nagisa Oshima's "Death by Hanging" and "Diary of a Shinjuku Thief", Shohei Imamura's documentary "A Man Vanishes", Shuji Terayama's "Pastoral: To Die in the Country" and Toshio Matsumura's "Shura, amongst many others. Also on September 15th at 4:30Pm Go Hirasawa himself will be at the Cinémathèque presenting a free lecture on the history of Art Theater Guild.

To get a full look at all the ATG films that you can see this month at the Cinémathèque Québécoise head to their official website here; and to get you ready check out the original trailer for Oshima's "Diary of a Shunjuku Thief" below.