Film Screenings / Programs / Retrospectives
THE FILMS OF SHINSUKE OGAWA
June 7 – June 18
June 7-18, 2013
Long overdue, this comprehensive retrospective devoted to the work of a giant of documentary cinema, Shinsuke Ogawa (1936-92), will bring more than a dozen of his films to North America for the first time in many years. While his films did circulate internationally when they were first released, Ogawa has been unaccountably neglected in the Western world in the decades since. With this series we hope to re-focus attention on his extraordinary, incisive, and deeply committed body of work.
Fearlessly devoted to radical politics and to collective production, Ogawa began his career making films about the student movement, before turning his cameras on the increasingly violent conflict between the authorities and farmers who were being threatened with eviction to make way for the construction of the proposed Narita International Airport. Rejecting the notion that a documentary filmmaker must remain a detached observer of the events he or she records, Ogawa and his collaborators (who together formed Ogawa Productions, or ‘Ogawa Pro’) threw themselves into the (protracted) struggle, producing seven films over the course of almost a decade (including masterpieces such as PEASANTS OF THE SECOND FORTRESS and HETA VILLAGE).
After the waning of the Sanrizuka protests, Ogawa and his colleagues soon came to devote themselves to an equally ambitious project, relocating to Yamagata Prefecture and beginning a series of films focusing on the rural village of Magino. Living and working with the farmers they filmed, the collective created an astonishing, unique portrait of a culture and a way of life that are rarely depicted.
Remarkable both for his unforgettable films and for his radical approach to documentary cinema, Ogawa has been hugely influential within Japan and Asia, and deserves to be far more widely known in the U.S. As extraordinary as his individual films are, Ogawa's is a body of work whose impact is even greater when experienced as a whole - seeing the films together and in order reveals the fascinating process by which the Ogawa Pro collective's conception of documentary cinema developed, as a result of their thoughtful debates as well as the transformations taking place in postwar Japanese society and politics. This retrospective provides a rare and richly rewarding opportunity to chart the course of this development.
Presented with invaluable support from The Japan Foundation.
Organized in collaboration with Go Hirasawa (Meiji-Gakuin University) and Markus Nornes (University of Michigan), author of the book FOREST OF PRESSURE: OGAWA SHINSUKE AND POSTWAR JAPANESE DOCUMENTARY. Presented with the invaluable assistance of the Athénée Français Cultural Center, Tokyo, the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, and Icarus Films (NY).
Very special thanks to Kanako Shirasaki, Yukihiro Ohira, and Grant Tompkins (Japan Foundation); Yuichiro Izumi (Athenee Francais); Masaharu Oki, Kazuyuki Yano, Asako Fujioka & Haruka Hama (Yamagata); Jonathan Miller, Livia Bloom & Colin Beckett (Icarus Films); and Frederick Veith.
All descriptions are by Markus Nornes. Unless otherwise noted, all films are in Japanese with English subtitles.
SEA OF YOUTH – FOUR CORRESPONDENCE COURSE STUDENTS
1966, 56 min, 16mm
SEA OF YOUTH was Ogawa’s first directorial effort. After leaving Iwanami Productions along with most of his cohort, he struck an unusual path. He gathered young activists together to make an independent documentary on the plight of correspondence students. The film features the group itself as they plot their activism. Many of the onscreen personalities would become core members of Ogawa Productions. The film met only mild success in fundraising, so they completed it by selling off books and blood.
Fri, June 7 at 7:15 and Thurs, June 13 at 9:15
FOREST OF OPPRESSION – A RECORD OF THE STRUGGLE AT TAKASAKI CITY UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS
1967, 105 min, 16mm-to-digital video
After SEA OF YOUTH, the film team turned itself into a full-fledged collective: the Independent Screening Organization, or Jieso for short. This was the precursor to Ogawa Productions, and as the name indicates their focus was on reception. This was because they discovered there was no easy way to show SEA OF YOUTH. Jieso networked social movements and film fans across Japan to create an alternative distribution route. Their next film, FOREST OF OPPRESSION, turns to the phenomenon of students barricading themselves inside schools to various political ends. They chose Takasaki City University of Economics, and audiences were shocked by the vigor and violence of this protest in such a minor university. The film put Ogawa on the map.–Fri, June 7 at 8:45 and Thurs, June 13 at 7:00.
REPORT FROM HANEDA1967, 58 min, 16mm. No subtitles.After the explosive success of FOREST OF OPPRESSION, Jieso organized their next film with a couple labor unions and political activists/filmmakers. Bristling with scenes of clashing protesters and riot police, Ogawa (who appears onscreen) carefully investigates the death of a young protester. The film’s analytical look at the effects of a baton strike on the human brain foreshadow a filmmaking strategy that would be key to their later work.REPORT FROM HANEDA’s original title refers to the daily reports written by police; aside from its irony, it also refers to the police surveillance under which the collective now found itself.
Sat, June 8 at 3:15
SANRIZUKA SERIES:
THE BATTLE FRONT FOR THE LIBERATION OF JAPAN – SUMMER IN SANRIZUKA
1968, 108 min, 16mm
In 1968, Ogawa decided to form Ogawa Productions and locate it at the newly announced construction site of Narita International Airport in a district called Sanrizuka. Ogawa chose to locate his company in the most radical of the villages, Heta. Some farmers immediately sold their land; others vehemently protested, and drew the support of social movements across the country. Together they clashed with riot police sent in to protect surveyors, who were plotting out the airport. SUMMER AT SANRIZUKA is a messy film, but its chaos communicates the passions and actions on the ground.
Sat, June 8 at 4:45 and Fri, June 14 at 9:00
SANRIZUKA – THE THREE DAY WAR
1970, 50 min, 16mm
After SUMMER IN SANRIZUKA, Ogawa Pro attempted a more epic scale with WINTER IN SANRIZUKA. It was roundly criticized as a failure. In the wake of this criticism, as well as visits by Joris Ivens and Black Panthers Elbert Howard and Roberta Alexander, the collective became increasingly militant. They decided to make a quick and dirty report from the front, calling it a “bullet film” (dangan eiga). This is a quick and dirty agit-prop film shot over the course of three days, when 2,500 protestors battled 6,500 police. Even school had been let out so students could participate in the action.
Sat, June 8 at 7:15 and Sat, June 15 at 2:15
SANRIZUKA – PEASANTS OF THE SECOND FORTRESS
1971, 143 min, 16mm
PEASANTS OF THE SECOND FORTRESS was Ogawa’s first international success, as prints were swapped with collectives in America and Europe. The violence had escalated in Sanrizuka and farmers turned to a new tactic: they built large fortresses, and burrowed underground – under their ground. Ogawa follows the course of the protests, as police invade one after the other. Between the action scenes Ogawa pauses to chat with farmers, both above and below ground. One palpably senses the strong relationship the collective had nurtured with the farmers, and the deep respect with which Ogawa approached his subjects.
Sat, June 8 at 8:30 and Sat, June 15 at 5:00
SANRIZUKA – HETA VILLAGE
1973, 146 min, 16mm
An extraordinary documentary about time and place, the first of two masterpieces by Ogawa Productions. As their relationships with farmers deepened, the violence of the police escalated. People were being killed and arbitrarily imprisoned. However, Ogawa pushed this to the far background to concentrate on the village of Heta itself – its history, its customs and its people – as one of its youth commits suicide and others are detained by police. The film is quiet, patient, and its 11 scenes are mostly rendered in single takes. This astonishing film is their attempt to render the “time of the village.”
Sun, June 9 at 1:15 and Sat, June 15 at 8:00
SANRIZUKA – THE SKIES OF MAY, THE ROAD TO THE VILLAGE
1977, 81 min, 16mm
In the mid-1970s, the protests were waning across Japan after the Red Army scandal of Asama Cottage. In Sanrizuka, people were weary of the violence and the airport was well under construction. As for Ogawa Productions, they invited criticism by pulling out and moving to a quiet village in northern Japan. But when protesters back in Sanrizuka erected a tall tower at the end of one runway, they sent a crew to document what happened. This became the final film of the Sanrizuka Series.
Sun, June 9 at 4:15
A SONG OF THE BOTTOM / DOKKOI! SONGS FROM THE BOTTOM
1975, 121 min, 16mm
As the protests at Sanrizuka transformed, Ogawa began looking for other subjects. He eventually moved to Yamagata, but considered other subjects like this one: the brutal Kotobukicho district of Yokohama. Only 250 meters on a side, it was home to 6,000 people living in 90 run-down flophouses. This was where day laborers live and die on the streets. Following the method they developed in Sanrizuka, Ogawa’s crew lived with the workers, tenderly filming the trials of their daily lives. It is a touching and heartrending film.
Sun, June 9 at 6:15 and Sun, June 16 at 6:00
MAGINO VILLAGE SERIES:
THE MAGINO VILLAGE STORY – RAISING SILKWORMS
1977, 112 min, 16mm
In Yamagata, Ogawa started a new series: the ‘Magino Village Story’. Once again the collective lived with its subjects, this time in a small silkworm barn borrowed from a farmer-poet. They converted it into a home and film studio, where anywhere from 10 to 25 men, women, and children lived and worked. After moving, Ogawa immediately went into a mental slump and seemed depressed. His wife spearheaded this film, partly hoping to revitalize the director. A look at the local raising of silkworms, this charming film deploys many of the filmmaking strategies key to their next films.
Sun, June 9 at 8:45 and Mon, June 17 at 6:45
“NIPPON”: FURUYASHIKI VILLAGE
1982, 210 min, 16mm
By the early 1980s, Ogawa Productions was well into a massive film about rice and village history, when an unusual cold front caused serious crop damage in a village deep in the mountains behind Magino. Furuyashiki was a prototypical mountain village, with thatched roofs and deep, deep snow. Ogawa plays with the conventions of the science documentary to examine the crop damage problem, while penetrating deep into the history of the village. In this tiny mountain hamlet, he finds the entire history of Japan – from ancient sea creatures through the catastrophe of WWII to the quiet violence of the economic miracle. As one old man says, “We thought the paved road would bring modernity; instead, it made it easier for the young people to leave.”
Mon, June 10 at 7:00 and Tues, June 18 at 7:00
MAGINO VILLAGE – A TALE / THE SUNDIAL CARVED WITH A THOUSAND YEARS OF NOTCHES
1986, 222 min, 16mm
Ogawa Productions’ other masterpiece, this brings together all the themes Ogawa explored in his oeuvre: farming, state violence, resistance, modernization, and village time. The film masterfully combines the conventions of the science film with Griersonian documentary sequences about ghosts and gods, along with fictional sequences featuring cameos by the likes of butoh founder Tatsumi Hijikata (his last performance) and Roman Porno star Junko Miyashita. It is a thoughtful meditation on history and the way it is never quite ‘past’ in village Japan. If Ogawa’s first films and the Sanrizuka Series arc from the self-centered concerns of the student movement to a collective effort at understanding the communal way of life of the village, then the ‘Magino Village Story’ displays a similar arcing movement away from the collective toward the powerful individual expression of Ogawa Shinsuke.
Tues, June 11 at 7:00 and Sun, June 16 at 1:30
Toshio Iizuka
A MOVIE CAPITAL
1991, 93 min, 16mm
In the late 1980s, Ogawa helped the Yamagata City government establish the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival. A MOVIE CAPITAL was directed by Ogawa’s assistant director, Toshio Iizuka, and documents the first outing of the festival in 1989. It includes interviews with competition filmmakers like Jon Jost, but highlights the festival’s Asia Symposium. This event ended with a manifesto written by Kidlat Tahimik that called for a new era in Asian documentary. And this is exactly what happened, with the Yamagata Documentary Film Festival serving as its epicenter. Ogawa was sick during the production of this film, and died shortly after its premiere at the youthful age of 55.
Wed, June 12 at 7:00 and Mon, June 17 at 9:15
Shinsuke Ogawa & Peng Xiao-lian
RED PERSIMMONS
2001, 90 min, 16mm
RED PERSIMMONS was actually a major segment cut from SUNDIAL CARVED WITH A THOUSAND YEARS OF NOTCHES. The filmmakers left this rough cut on a shelf, and always wanted to return to it. As Ogawa all but lost his collective in the late 1980s, he turned his attention to Asian documentary filmmakers and appeared to be creating a virtual collective across the region. Many directors from the Philippines, Korea, Taiwan, and China were deeply influenced by their encounters with Ogawa. One of these was Peng Xiao-lian, a feature filmmaker from the PRC. Long after Ogawa’s death, Peng pulled the segment off the shelf and gave it a new life in a virtual collaboration with Ogawa.
Wed, June 12 at 9:00 and Fri, June 14 at 7:00
Jun’ichiro Oshige
A VISIT TO OGAWA PRODUCTIONS
1981/99, 61 min, 16mm
This is a straightforward record of Nagisa Oshima’s trip to Yamagata. The collective was in the middle of shooting FURUYASHIKI and Oshima interviewed the filmmakers in the rice paddies. The film ends with a conversation between Oshima and Ogawa, where Oshima asks questions that only he could ask.
Sat, June 15 at 3:30
Barbara Hammer
DEVOTION: A FILM ABOUT OGAWA PRODUCTIONS
2000, 82 min, video
Barbara Hammer encountered Ogawa’s widow, Yoko Shiraishi, when one of her films showed at the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival. She was intrigued by this strange collective, and set out to make a film about them. Her wonderfully idiosyncratic documentary often uses random images from the films to stand for the collective’s members, as if they were home movies. She encountered suspicion as a feminist, as a foreigner, and as a documentary filmmaker who chose not to live and dwell with her subjects. Hammer has said, “It is the most difficult film I have ever made.” DEVOTION is a striking meditation on political passion and the gender dynamics in artist/activist collectives.
Sun, June 16 at 8:30
