Japanese Cinema EclecticsJapanese Cinema Eclectics

A multi-part series devoted to unexplored tangents of the Japanese film
Second Installment of a new film series at SDLX curated & moderated by Donald Richie
Sponsored by Institute of Contemporary Japanese Studies (TUJ)
"Focus"
Directed and edited by Satoshi Isaka. Script by Kazuo Shin. Photographed by Tetsuro Sano. With Tadanobu Asano, Akira Shirai, Keiko Unno and Tetsuro Sano. Produced by Masato Hara and Kazuo Kuroi. Ace pictures/Seiyu Films,. 1996. 73mins with english subtitles.

Japanese Cinema Eclectics
A multi-part series devoted to unexplored tangents of the Japanese film
Second Installment of a new film series at SDLX curated & moderated by Donald Richie
Sponsored by Institute of Contemporary Japanese Studies (TUJ)
July.12sth (Wed) at SuperDeluxe MAP
B1F 3.1.25 Nishi Azabu, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106-0031, Japan
T: 03.5412.0515 | F: 03.5412.0516
open 19:00 | start 20:00 | 1500 yen
"Focus"
Directed and edited by Satoshi Isaka. Script by Kazuo Shin. Photographed by Tetsuro Sano. With Tadanobu Asano, Akira Shirai, Keiko Unno and Tetsuro Sano. Produced by Masato Hara and Kazuo Kuroi. Ace pictures/Seiyu Films,. 1996. 73mins
This brilliant first film is a fake documentary about a current-affairs TV crew and its opportunistic scoop-minded director's interviewing a nerdy otaku addicted to eavesdropping on mobile phones. The interview gets out of hand, things get more and more hysterical, and it all ends in utter disaster. We see it all because all we are shown is what the ostensible TV camera sees – a lens which hides as much as it shows. A startling script, extraordinary performances, and an ambition to display the full idiocy of television itself, this film remains one of the best of the decade.
*FOCUS will be shown with english subtitles
{{ Donald Richie }}
Named by TIME magazine, " the dean of Japan's art critics," and acknowledged as the foremost authority on Japanese cinema, Donald Richie has also written widely - some forty books in all - on other aspects of the country and its people. The Inland Sea has been called a classic and its film version has won prizes at international film festivals as well as the National Geographic Earth Award. His Public People, Private People has been called "unforgettable" by Tom Wolfe and of his two collections of essays, A Lateral View and Partial Views, Susan Sontag has said: " Donald Richie writes about Japan with an unrivaled range, acuity, and wit."
Richie has lived in Japan for most of his life. Arriving on New Year's Day, 1947, he worked as feature-writer and film critic for The Pacific Stars and Stripes. After graduating from Columbia University in 1953, he returned to Japan as film citic for The Japan Times. He has written for Newsweek, The Nation, Variety, The New York Times, The Guardian, Harper's, Atlantic Monthly, and all major films magazines. In addition he presented the first retrospective of the Japanese film director Yasujiro Ozu at the 1962 Berlin Film Festival and has since acted as guest director of the Telluride Film Festival, and served on the juries at the Hawaii, Lacarno, Thessaloniki, and Kerala Festivals.
In addition to writing a column for The Japan Times, lecturing around t