You might remember back in April I posted about an evening of films by the experimental filmmaker Takahiko Iimura organised by Close Up Video at the Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club in London, which ultimately was canceled when the volcanic eruption in Iceland saw its guest of honour stranded in Japan. Well, the screenings are back on again for this October, and the extra time has actually allowed the event to be expanded into something of a touring programme, with the director in attendance at a number of screenings across the country, in London, Leeds and Bristol.

If you’re not familiar with Iimura’s work, you can check out his website, and await the interview with the director which should be coming up on Midnight Eye sometime soon conducted by Julian Ross. Julian also had a hand in getting the screenings up to Leeds, in conjunction with the Cherry Kino exerimental filmmaking/screening group and the University of Leeds’s Centre For World Cinemas-Mixed Cinema Network, where I gave a talk on the Japanese New Wave back in February of this year. Not only that, but Julian is also the driving force behind the Breaking Boundaries: Alternative Approaches to Japanese Film conference I mentioned in my post a couple of months ago.

I mention all of this because not only is Zipangu Fest, the new Japanese film festival that I am programming, collaborating with Breaking Boundaries where we’ll be screening a print of Hiroshi Shimizu’s Children of the Beehive, but Julian has also put together a programme of 1960s experimental work in collaboration with Close Up Video which will be screening at the Bethnal Green Working Man’s Club as part of Zipangu Fest on 23rd November. I’ll of course be announcing more details about this as they come, but suffice it to say for now, if you’re based in England and interested in 1960s experimental film from Japan, you’re going to be very well served this year!

Anyway, more details about the Iimura screenings below – note that the programme is different from venue to venue:

Dates in the UK:

October 5th: London, Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club: Seeing/Hearing/Speaking – The Films of Takahiko Iimura + Live Performance

October 6th: London, Nowhere Lab (Workshop): no.w.here and Takahiko Iimura present: How To Make Time Visible In Film (without photography)

October 7th: London, Central St. Martins, University of Arts London

October 11th: Leeds, ICS Cinema in the University of Leeds more details on this particular screening below

October 13th: Bristol, Arnolfini: Takahiko Iimura: On Time in Film (Discussion and Screenings)

Here’s some more information for the Leeds event:

Cherry Kino and the CWC-MCN University of Leeds presents: Japanese Experimental Cinema: An Evening with Takahiko Iimura

Date: October 11^th 2010

Time: 6:30-9pm

Venue: ICS Cinema, University of Leeds

Price: FREE

Takahiko Iimura is an experimental filmmaker, video artist and writer on experimental film who has been working with the moving image since the 1960s. His work explores the relationship between media, time and language and has strived to redefine the exhibition of cinema as a mode of performance. He has worked closely with members of the Hi-Red Centre and Fluxus, as well as Yoko Ono, Jonas Mekas, John Cage, Stan Brakhage, Stan Vanderbeek and many others, bridging boundaries between film, art and performance. He moved to New York in 1966 and has since been a conduit of intercultural communication between Japan and America, introducing Japanese experimental cinema to the West and vice versa. He recently began self-releasing his work on DVD and continues to travel around the world to show his films.

“Although Taka was and continues to be an active part of the New York avant-garde scene, he always remained an enigmatic, mysterious presence, pursuing his own unique route through the very center of the avant-garde cinema. While the intensity and the fire of the American avant-garde film movement inspired him and attracted him, his Japanese origins contributed decisively to his uncompromising explorations of cinema’s minimalist and conceptualist possibilities. He has explored this direction of cinema in greater depth than anyone else.” – Jonas Mekas

“From early sixties, though Japanese, Iimura was well known as one of the first generation of the New York Underground … For many years, Japanese experimental film was Takahiko Iimura” – Malcolm Le Grice

Cherry Kino and the CWC-MCN University of Leeds have invited Takahiko Iimura to join our screening of a selection of his films, which will be followed by a Q&A with the filmmaker himself. Many thanks to WREAC who have helped us fund the event and the ICS for kindly offering their venue.

For more information on the event, please click here.

Films programmed for the event (16mm):

Ai (Love) (1962)

Iro (Colour) (1962-3)

Kuzu (Junk) (1962)

One Frame Duration (1977)

Cine-Dance: Anma (1963)

Ma: Space/Time in the Garden of Ryoan-ji (1989)

Performance of White Calligraphy (2008)