Jasper Sharp : Roxy Bar and Screen

08
Sep

All night Sasori at the Rio in Dalston on 24 Sept

There’s been a whole load of film-related news in our buzzing capital these past few days. Admittedly, the announcement of the London Film Festival programme yesterday slightly overshadowed my own announcement of the dates for Zipangu Fest (18-24 November at the ICA, if you can’t be bothered to scroll down a bit). Of course, we haven’t actually made public any of our programming choices yet, which we’re keeping a closely guarded secret until nearer the time, but you might hear me let a few things slip out if you’re at the Female Prisoner #701 Triple Bill at the Rio Cinema in Dalston on 24 September. The event starts at 11pm and carries on through to daybreak, and I’ve been kindly asked by the organisers, Cigarette Burns Cinema, to stand up between screenings and deliver some patter about Meiko Kaji, Toei Pinky Violence, and other related topics. Perhaps I’ll crack under the pressure of sleep deprivation and end up revealing the whole programme…

The cool iconic beauty of Meiko Kaji, as Sasori

Anyway, my presence aside, this is going to be a wonderful night. If you’ve not seen any of the Female Prisoner #701 films (or Female Convict Scorpion, or whatever other titles you like to refer to them under), then you’re in for a rare treat – these aren’t your average Woman in Prison bits of exploitation fluff, but hypnotic, frequently surreal and dreamlike action titles with a logical progression between each of the various instalments and a captivating performance by the cool iconic beauty Meiko Kaji. I’ve not seen them for a while myself, and it’s going to be fab watching them on the big screen all at once.

The hypnotic Female Convict Scorpion: Jailhouse 41 (1972)

The films are being presented in association with the Scala Forever season currently running across a number of venues this Summer (although chiefly The Roxy Bar and Screen) in memory of the legendary repertory cinema up in Kings Cross in which so many of us had our viewing habits formed. In fact, I’m just looking at the programme and I notice that the ICA are showing my favourite Imamura film, The Ballad of Narayama, on the 28th and 29th of this month, which, as I wrote in the intro to Behind the Pink Curtain, proved a seminal experience when I first saw it on a Double Bill at the Scala with Koji Wakamatsu’s Violated Angels back in 1990.

Check out the Female Prisoner all-nighter Facebook page here and more info on this and Cigarette Burns’ other activites can be found here.

Posted at 14:27 on 08 September 2011

Filed under news.

4

1

26
Apr

Gearing up for Nippon Connection 2011

I’ve had my hands incredibly full these past few weeks, if you’re wondering at all why I’ve not been posting much recently, and I still have a few loose ends to tie up here before I get up at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning and head to Nippon Connection for my seventh year running. Yes, hard to believe, but it’s already been a year since we were all stranded in Frankfurt by the Icelandic volcano whose name no one could ever pronounce. There are plenty of goodies on offer again this year, including a CALF Animation Special & Independent Animation Filmmakers’ Talk moderated by Cathy Munroe Hotes of Nishikata Film Review featuring Mirai Mizue, Nobuaki Doi and Tochka on 29 April · 18:00 – 21:30.

This presents me with the opportunity to mention that the CALF collectives’ work has proved extremely popular in the UK of late – we got a great turnout at the Zipangu Fest / CALF charity fundrasiser for the Tohoku Earthquake on Sunday 2 April (thanks once again to Phil and the wonderful staff at the Roxy for helping this happen), and 7 April saw a sell-out screening of the programme at Newcastle’s Star & Shadow screening where the staff had to carry sofas into the theatre to cram all the customers in!

Pixilate to Heal - the audience get involved at the CALF fundraiser at the Roxy, 3 April 2011

The UK-based animator Miho Lomon was present at the Roxy screening where she invited the audience to participate in her Pixilate to Heal – Japan Tsunami Appeal animation project (check the facebook page for more info). Hopefully her movie will be up on youtube soon so I can post a link to it on this website. Tochka also worked their animation magic to lend a voice of support to the earthquake victims, which I’m posting below.

Anyway, I may or may not post bulletins from Nippon Connection over the next few days, depending upon how busy I am, but this is just a promise to say once I’m back, I will post the final installment of my Widescreen Weekend report, so watch this space…

Posted at 15:54 on 26 April 2011

Filed under news.

Comments Off

3

18
Mar

Fundraising Screening of CALF Animation Programme for Play For Japan at the Roxy Bar and Screen in London

Following on from my post of a few days back, the Play For Japan website has been set up to give details of all fundraising events in the UK for the victims of the Tohoku Earthquake. The coming weeks should see a number of arts and music related events taking place in London, such as a handful of gigs by the London-based Aussie electro-techno twosome Loops of Fury and a 1950′s themed Whiskey Tasting and music Extravaganza with Cask Strength and Gary Driscoll (sounds right up my alley!) No doubt there’ll be plenty more soon announced too, but if you too have got any ideas of ways in which you can raise money, then get in touch with Play for Japan at events@playforjapan.com.

Oh yes, and there’s also a Play for Japan Facebook group.

Dates and venues for the above events have yet to be confirmed, which goes someway to show the difficulties in getting hold of a venue at short notice, which is why we are particularly grateful to the Roxy Bar and Screen on Borough High Street (midway between London Bridge and Borough tube stations) for stepping in at such short notice and providing both a bar and a screen for a Special screening of Beyond Anime: CALF Animation for Play for Japan, on Sunday 3 April from 6-9pm.

And likewise, a huge thanks to Nobuaki Doi and the animators at CALF, Atsushi Wada, Kei Oyama, Mirai Mizue and the TOCHKA collective for giving their thumbs up to show their films.

There’s no fixed ticket price. Just donate what you want at the door, and we’ll no doubt find some other way of prising more money from your hands on the night, all of which will go directly to the Japan Society Tohoku Earthquake Relief Fund.

For more details, take a look at the entry on the Play for Japan website, its Facebook event page or the Zipangu Fest website, with the full programme listed here.

So just to reiterate, that’s

Special screening of Beyond Anime: CALF Animation for Play for Japan

Where: The Roxy Bar and Screen, 128-132 Borough High Street, London SE1 1LB (London Bridge and Borough tube stations)

When: Sunday 03 April 2010, 18:00 – 21:00.

I’ll try and keep people up to speed on other Play for Japan events too either via this website or Twitter.

Finally, I wanted to end with Ian Thomas Ash’s third and fourth video documents of life in Tokyo in the wake of the quake, much of it concerned, as we all are, with the ominous spectre of the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

After earthquake and tsunami in Japan, anyone for shopping?, uploaded 16 March 2011

Radiation Levels in Tokyo Warrant Fear?, uploaded 17 March 2011

Posted at 10:56 on 18 March 2011

Filed under news.

Comments Off

0