Film series: Introduction to Japanese Film

“Introduction to Japanese Film,” taught by Professor Andrew Campana, covers a broad range of eras, styles, and genres of Japanese cinema.

The three films selected for our spring series represent three completely different sides of Japan’s film history: Rashomon is a representative of the classic postwar cinema that served as Japanese film’s major introduction to the world; The Mourning Forest is a haunting contemporary hybrid of fiction and documentary by one of Japan’s most prominent women filmmakers; and Tampopo is a beloved 1980s film about food that dips into comedy, romance, Westerns, gangster films, and just about everything else in a kaleidoscopic encapsulation of Japanese popular movies.

Each screening will feature an introduction by Professor Campana.

Rashomon 
Directed by Akira Kurosawa, 1950
Thursday, January 25 at 7pm
Sunday, January 28 at 5:30pm
(Screens in a 35mm print courtesy of Janus Films)

The Mourning Forest 
Directed by Naomi Kawase, 2007
Thursday, February 22 at 7pm

Tampopo
Directed by Juzo Itami, 1985
Thursday, March 7 at 7pm