Experimental Films of the 1960s from Nihon University
Works by Motoharu Jonouchi, Masao Adachi, and Katsuhiro Tomita
*Image: Still from Masao Adachi, Wan (Bowl), 1961
Curated by Go Hirasawa (Meiji Gakuin University)
Date: Wednesday, October 14, 6:30 pm
Location: Michelson Theater, NYU Department of Cinema Studies, 721 Broadway, 6th Floor
Duration: 75 minutes
Pou Pou, 1960, 16mm, b/w, 22 min. Directed by Nihon University Cinema Club.
Wan (Bowl), 1961, 16mm, b/w, 25 min. Directed by Nihon University New Cinema Club.
The Martyr, 1963, 16mm, b/w, 28 min. Directed by Katsuhiro Tomita.
(All films courtesy of The Film-Makers' Coop, New York.)
In conjunction with the touring exhibition at the Grey Art Gallery, New York University, For a New World to Come: Experiments in Japanese Art and Photography, 1968–1979, Grey Art Gallery and Collaborative Cataloging Japan present experimental films by three filmmakers associated with Nihon University in the 1960s. The first two works represent producers Motoharu Jonouchi and Masao Adachi's activities within the Nihon University Cinema Club (Nihon Daigaku Eiga Kenkyukai, a.k.a. Nichidai Eiken), a collective formed in the late 1950s and associated with the university’s communist organization. Produced by Jonouchi, Pou Pou (1960) was made in the period leading up to, and in the context of the protests against the renewal of the Japan–U.S. Security Treaty in 1960, which allowed the continuation of American military bases in the country. After failures to prevent the security treaty renewal, Adachi produced Wan (Bowl) (1961), expressing the political landscape from his leftist point of view. Though not a member of the Cinema Club, Tomita produced The Martyr as a film-production student at Nihon University. Selected by film scholar Go Hirasawa, the works will be drawn from the Film-Makers’ Cooperative, New York.
Both screenings are being offered in conjunction with the exhibition For a New World to Come: Experiments in Japanese Art and Photography, 1968–1979, on view at the Grey Art Gallery, New York University, September 11–December 5, 2015, and Japan Society Gallery, New York, October 15, 2015–January 10, 2016.
They are organized by Collaborative Cataloging Japan and co-sponsored by New York University’s Department of Art History; Moving Image Archiving & Preservation Program and Asian Film & Media Initiative, both Department of Cinema Studies; and Grey Art Gallery.