The Korean Cultural Centre Will Screen the film “The Knitting Club” on August 03rd

The Korean Cultural Centre in London is hosting another series of free film screenings and this one is called, Patchworks: Unwrapping My Korean Cinema. The latest film is a documentary about a knitting club but there’s more to it including the bonds that members of this club make and creating a union. The screening takes place on August 03rd from 19:00.

Here’s information on the first film in this season as pulled from the website:

Japanese Films at the Venice Film Festival 2017

The Venice International Film Festival launches its 74^th edition on August 30^th and it lasts until September 09^th and the line-up was announced earlier this week. I’ve missed the last couple editions of the festival because there have been few Japanese films (the last edition I covered was in 2014). Anyway, there are two Japanese films from current directors and three classics from the golden age present this year. One if the modern ones is a Hirokazu Koreeda film which is in the international competition section which has many world premieres. Takeshi Kitano has his latest film screened out of competition, a section dedicated to already-established directors. There is also on American documentary about the Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto.

There are a couple of other Asian movies. To find out more about them, head over to Windows on Worlds.

Here are the details on the Japanese films:

Suffering of Ninko 「仁光の受難」(2016) Dir: Niwatsukino Norihiro

Suffering of Ninko   

the-suffering-of-ninko-film-poster

仁光の受難 「Ninko no junan」

Running Time: 70 mins.

Director: Niwatsukino Norihiro

Writer: Niwatsukino Norihiro (Screenplay)

Starring: Masato Tsujioka, Miho Wakabayashi, Hideta Iwahashi, Yukino Arimoto, Tomoko Harazaki, Qyoko Kudo,

IMDB  Website

Seeing someone suffer is rarely fun but this film all about a Buddhist priest who is cursed to be sexually irresistible to all around him is sure to amuse audiences.

Ninko (Masato Tsujioka) is a novice Buddhist monk living during the Edo period. He is based at Enmei-ji, a temple in the mountains. He is, in fact, a paragon of a monk, adhering to asceticism to learn his religion, dutifully cooking, cleaning, and praying every day.

Shorts Night “Women Now” at the Korean Cultural Centre on July 27th

The Korean Cultural Centre in London is hosting another series of free film screenings and this one is called, Patchworks: Unwrapping My Korean Cinema. It is the final season of 2017’s Korean Film Nights and just like the last season, there are films being screened for free at the Korean Cultural Centre every Thursday.

The previous screening was It’s Not Her Sin, a black and white film from the ’50s. This week is Shorts Night: “Women Now” and this is totally up-to-date in terms of the representation of Korea and Koreans on screen. Audiences will have the chance to see six short films looking at the experiences of females in Korea from childhood to old age. They have been made by men and women, Koreans and expats, international co-productions and an animation made in Britain and they offer a huge range of stories

Here’s information on the first film in this season as pulled from the website:

Dawn of the Felines「牝猫たち」 Dir: Kazuya Shiraishi 2016

Dawn of the Felines    

牝猫たち 「Mesuneko Tachi」

Running Time: 84 mins.

Director:  Kazuya Shiraishi

Writer: Kazuya Shiraishi (Screenplay),

Starring: Juri Ihata, Satsuki Maue, Michie, Takuma Otoo, Tomohiro Kaku, Hideaki Murata,

Website IMDB

Dawn of the Felines is another entry in the reboot of the Roman Porno series and it comes from Kazuya Shiraishi who has worked on the rather leaden dramas The Devil’s Path and Twisted Justice. The title is a signal to anyone who knows the Roman Porno movement since it seems to follow on from Night of the Felines, a somewhat light take on the sex lives of people in Tokyo as seen and felt by a group of sex workers in a bathhouse. Dawn of the Felines is the modern update set in the glimmering neon lights and shadowy back streets of Ikebukuro.

Summer Lights 「なつのひかり」 Dir: Jean-Gabriel Periot 2016

Summer Lights

なつのひかり 「Natsu no Hikari」

Running Time: 83 mins

Director:  Jean-Gabriel Periot

Writer: Jean-Gabriel Periot (Screenplay), Yoko Harano (Collaboration),

Starring: Akane Natsukawa, Hiroto Ogi, Yuzu Horie, Keiji Izumi, Mamako Yoneyama,

UniFrance   Website    IMDB

Summer Lights comes from the award-winning French filmmaker Jean-Gabriel Périot. His past work has focussed on non-fiction short films about war, human rights and political struggle. He continues to explore these issues here in his first fiction film about a documentary filmmaker in the company of a capricious young woman who guides him around the city of Hiroshima, the two discovering some of the stories and traumas of the past whilst life blooms around them.

Aroused by Gymnopedies「ジムノペディに乱れる」 Director: Isao Yukisada (2017)

Aroused by Gymnopedies   

ジムノペディに乱れる　「Gymnopedies ni Midareru」

Running Time: 83 mins

Director:  Isao Yukisada

Writer: Isao Yukisada, Anne Horizumi (Screenplay),

Starring: Itsuji Itao, Sumire Ashina, Izumi Okamura, Noriko Kijima, Yuko Miyamoto, Masaki Miura, Kenji Iwatani, Mayumi Tajima,

Website IMDB

Aroused by Gymnopedies is one of the five films commissioned by Nikkatsu to be part of its reboot of the Roman Porno genre. Isao Yukisada directs and co-writes a self-reflexive story about the craft of filmmaking involving a once-great director who finds himself on skid-row and carrying a sadness that seemingly not even sex with a series of beautiful women can relieve.

The has-been director is fifty-something Shinji Furuya (Itsuji Itao). He was once a rising star in arthouse cinema capable of making great works that won awards at places like the Venice Film Festival but over the course of time his taste for womanising ballooned and something happened to him that made him fall from the heavens of the film industry and into a hellish landscape of melancholy and self-pity. He is now reduced to directing pink films for money, a stony-faced chain-smoking presence on set and a silent solitary man juggling debts in private. His latest production has turned into a disaster because his lead actress Anri (Izumi Okamura) has dropped out and he’s going to lose a desperately-needed paycheck.

Thrown deeper into his mire of depression and with bills to pay he shambles around Tokyo over the course of seven days he alternately looking for money and slumps from one female acquaintance’s bed to another. Alas, he seems to get no joy from the sex he has with beautiful woman and he even rejects their offers of comfort. He soldiers on in being miserable because he carries an emotional burden too great for others to solve and it seems to be connected to a woman who plays the Erik Satie piano piece Gymnopedies in flashbacks he experiences…

Wet Woman in the Wind「風に濡れた女 」 2017 Dir: Akihiko Shiota

Wet Woman in the Wind   

風に濡れた女 「Kaze ni nureta onna」

Running Time: 78 mins.

Director:  Akihiko Shiota

Writer: Akihiko Shiota (Screenplay),

Starring: Tasuku Nagaoka, Yuki Mamiya, Ryushin Tei, Takahiro Kato, Hitomi Nakatani, Michiko Suzuki, Yuumi Akagi,

Website IMDB

The Roman Porno label is back for a series of five films to celebrate 45 years since the Nikkatsu film studio launched the originals.

Over the last year or so this specific sub-genre of soft-core porn films has been resurrected and they have cropped up at various festivals such as International Film Festival Rotterdam and Nippon Connection. Audiences have been able to see these newer entries in the series celebrate their antecedents by following the same rules of creation laid out by their predecessors – a short shoot of about a week to create something lasting 80 minutes with sex scenes every ten minutes or so. Writers and directors were free to explore various themes and settings whether it be sexual politics to historical tales to self-reflexive comedies based on the film world.

The Korean Cultural Centre Will Screen the film “It’s Not Her Sin” on July 20th

The Korean Cultural Centre in London is hosting another series of free film screenings and this one is called, Patchworks: Unwrapping My Korean Cinema. It is the final season of 2017’s Korean Film Nights and apparently the title is “a play on Kim hong-joon’s My Korean Cinema (2002–2006), an 8-episode essay film that explored the director’s relationship with the history of Korean cinema. With each of the 8 episodes tackling a separate facet of the history of Korean cinema, our programme will focus on two episodes within the film: Smoking Women & For the March of Fools.”

The first screening is the 1959 film, It’s Not Her Sin.

This is the first of six films which will be screened on Thursday nights from July to September and these screenings will then be further separated into two mini-strands of three nights each. These two mini-strands will be comprised of five features and a short film programme.

Here’s information on the first film in this season as pulled from the website:

The Long Excuse 「永い言い訳 」 Dir: Miwa Nishikawa 2016

The Long Excuse 

永い言い訳 「Nagai Iiwake」

Running Time: 123 mins.

Director:  Miwa Nishikawa

Writer: Miwa Nishikawa (Screenplay/Original Novel),

Starring: Masahiro Motoki, Eri Fukatsu, Pistol Takehara, Maho Yamada, Tamaki Shiratori, Kenshin Fujita, Keiko Horiuchi, Haru Kuroki,

Website IMDB

Miwa Nishikawa loves writing about the worst traits of people. Nishkawa’s previous feature films, Wild Berries (2003), Sway (2006), Dear Doctor (2009), and Dreams for Sale (2012) have protagonists who are unctious liars, unappreciative egotists, unrepentant cheats, and utter scoundrels. In this film, based on a novel she wrote, Nishikawa asks the audience to follow a character whose emotional life is a cold-hearted absence borne by self-absorption, a man who has disappeared into himself and lost sight of what really matters in life, other people.