nwFilmCenter

Nov/Dec 2007

Fri, Nov 9, 2007 - Sun, Dec 30, 2007

Japanese director Shohei Imamura (1926-2006) was a true maverick. While his esteemed peers told idealized, classical humanist tales, Imamura had a preference for frank contemporary themes, particularly sensual stories of earthy, sexy, strong-willed women who disdained bourgeois Japanese morality. With a near-scientific,"anthropolgical" interest in Japanese society, Imamura entertainingly excelled at exposing the realities of the human condition and the basic instincts, rational and otherwise that drive human behavior. Famously quoted as saying "I am interested in the relationship of the lower part of the human body and the lower part of the social structure," and "I like to make messy films," Imamura gradually took his place among the leading figures of post-war Japanese cinema with a body of films that are, in the words of director Jonathan Demme, "among the greatest ever made. Organized by Adam Sekuler, Northwest Film Forum and Tom Vick, Freer and Sackler Galleries, Smithsonian Institution. This touring program of rarely screened films, most not released on video, is made possible with the assistance and sponsorship of The Japan Foundation, Tokyo and Los Angeles; Imamura Productions, Tokyo; and Janus Films, New York.

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Czech Modernism

Czech cinema is best known for its fertile New Wave period in the 1960s and the work of such such directors as Ivan Passer, Jiri Menzel and Milos Forman. But the country's entire cinematic history has been rich and varied, as this 12-film retrospective surveying works produced from the silent era to the Communist takeover in 1948 demonstrates. Absorbing the cultural influences of world cinemaÃ‘ particularly French surrealism, Hollywood glamour, German expressionism and Russian montageÃ‘and mixing it with the aesthetics of a unique, home-grown sense of artistic experimentation, Czech filmmakers fashioned a distinct sensibility Ã‘of its time yet surprisingly ahead of its time.

Czech Modernism in Film was produced and co-curated by Irena Kovarova, Czech Film Center, and New York for the BAMcinÅ½matek and The National Gallery of Art. Archival film prints provided by The National Film Archive, of Prague and Anthology Film Archive, New York. All films are in Czech with English subtitles, unless otherwise noted.

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Special Screenings

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Lech Majewski

A Polish artist who works internationally, Lech Majewski is perhaps best known in this country for his screenplay for BASQUIAT, Julian Schnable's fictionalized biography of painter Jean-Michel Basquiat. A graduate of the Lodz Film School, Majewski writes, directs, composes music for, and shoots his films while also working as a poet, painter, and celebrated stage and opera director. His stylized moving-image works eschew language in favor of music and fantastically expressive landscapes. His imaginative features are distinguished by a unique sensibility hovering not only between the absurd and the metaphysical, but also between the beautiful and the profane.

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34th Northwest Fest

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