I’m gearing up for my trip to Frankfurt at the moment for a fun-packed and furious four-and-a-bit days of Japanese celluloid overload courtesy of those fine folks at Nippon Connection. By this time next week I’ll be back in Blighty again, but if I was anticipating a heavy film-festival hangover, then it looks like I’ll have a couple of rare screenings of Japanese films in London to ease me through the comedown. The first of these comes literally the day after I touch down in the form of an evening of experimental films from the legendary Takahiko Iimura. Observer/Observed – The Films of Takahiko Iimura is on the 20th April at the The Working Men’s Club, 44-46 Pollard Row, London E2 6NB.

Takahiko Iimura's On Eye Rape, 1962

Barely a fortnight after that on 4th May comes a really rare chance to see the Koji Wakamatsu-produced, Masao Adachi-directed The Red Army / PFLP: Declaration of World War , as far as I know the first ever screening of this inflammatory work in the UK, almost 40 years since it was made – in fact, one of a tiny few English-subtitled showings of the film ever. The film is showing at the Barbican as part of the London Palestine Film Festival and is a must-see for anyone with a serious interest in Japanese film. I write about this film in some detail in Behind the Pink Curtain , but if you don’t know anything about it, here’s a quick excerpt from the Barbican website:

“This rarely seen work is a milestone in militant filmmaking and vital testimony to an era of global revolutionary beginnings. Renowned, already notorious Japanese filmmakers and activists Masao Adachi and Koji Wakamatsu stopped in Beirut on their return from the Cannes Film Festival in 1971. There, in collaboration with a newly-emerging Japanese Red Army (JRA) cadre and leaders of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) including Ghassan Kanafani and Leila Khaled, they produced this newsreel-style depiction of the everyday activities of Palestinian fighters so as to call for a worldwide Maoist revolution.”

Wakamatsu and Adachi's The Red Army / PFLP: Declaration of World War

I’ll just end by giving the heads up on another event coming up at the Barbican at the end of May, which I’m involved in, a screening of prewar Japanese animation. Watch this space for more details…

Posted at 21:27 on 12 April 2010 Filed under news.

• Tagged
• experimental film
• Koji Wakamatsu
• Masao Adachi
• Takahiko Iimura
• The Red Army / PFLP: Declaration of World War

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