Zipangu Fest Japanese Film Festival London November 2011 Details

Date: 2011 October 04 16:14

Posted by Joe

London based fans of Japanese cinema and culture will want to head over to the ICA in from Friday 18th to Thursday 24th November 2011 for the start of Zipangu Fest Japanese Film Festival. We've been sent details of the film line up.

For it's London premiere and the festival's opening night they'll be showing KanZeOn, which looks at religious traditions in locations far from Tokyo. This screening on 6:30pm on Friday 18th November 2011 will be followed by a launch party with musicians from Japan.

Fans of avant-garde and experimental music will want to catch We Don't Care About Music Anyway... which documents the Japanese music scene on 5pm on Sunday 20th November 2011.

As always with popular screenings we advise booking early to avoid disappointment.

Full Story

Press release as follows:

Zipangu Fest Japanarchy in the UK

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

London – Tuesday October 4th 2011

ZIPANGU FEST TO OPEN WITH STUNNING JAPANESE SOUND FILM AND LAUNCH PARTY – NOVEMBER 18TH AT THE ICA

Sounds of Zipangu to include journeys into sound ranging from the traditional to the avant-garde

A stunning new film that explores the relationship between ancient Buddhist rituals and sound will have its London premiere on the opening night of this year's Zipangu Fest. Part of the festival's Sounds of Zipangu strand, KanZeOn, which looks at religious traditions in locations far from Tokyo, will be screened at the ICA on November 18th, and followed by a launch party with musicians from Japan.

Sounds of Zipangu will also showcase the contemporary, urban side of sound and its perception, and We Don't Care About Music Anyway..., a film documenting Japan's avant-garde music scene and featuring Yoshihide Ohtomo and Hiromichi Sakamoto, will be screened at the ICA on November 20th.

Festival director and head programmer Jasper Sharp comments: 'Japan is world-renowned for its achievements in the field of avant-garde and experimental music, so we're really excited to be showcasing films that reflect the very different sides of Japanese culture that have given birth to such movements – the ancient and traditional on the one hand, and the urban and the modern on the other. There's also been a really exciting synergy between the country's musicians and filmmakers in recent years, so with the broad array of titles presented under the Sounds of Zipangu banner, we aim to highlight the various ways in which the two arts feed into one another, and this I think will be strongly reflected in other aspects of our programming for this year too. This exciting collaboration for the Zipangu Fest launch party, with so many of the key figures involved in the KanZeOn project, is going to set the tone for the rest of the weekend perfectly.'

The second Zipangu Fest – celebrating the best of cutting edge and avant garde Japanese cinema – will be held at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts from November 18th to 24th, before moving to venues around the UK. The festival will showcase a selection of Japan's finest features, documentaries, shorts, animation and experimental films.

Full details and descriptions of the films to be screened will be available soon at: http://zipangufest.com.

About Zipangu Fest
The first UK-wide festival devoted to Japanese film, Zipangu Fest aims to demonstrate the many identities of Japan by introducing works new and old by some of the country's most exciting and revered talents. Last year's inaugural festival took place at various venues around London's East End before travelling to regional events in Bristol, Leeds, Coventry,Nottingham and Newcastle in the UK, and further afield to Tallinn in Estonia.

About Jasper Sharp
Jasper Sharp is a writer and curator based in the UK. He co-edits the web site Midnight Eye, the premier English language resource on Japanese cinema, which he founded with Tom Mes in 2001. He is a regular visitor to Japan, having lived in Tokyo between 2001 and 2005, where he co-authored the Midnight Eye Guide to Japanese Film (Stonebridge Press, 2004). His critically acclaimed study of the Japanese pink film industry Behind the Pink Curtain, was published by FAB Press in 2008, while his latest work, The Historical Dictionary of Japanese Cinema will be published by Scarecrow Press later in 2011. His writing has appeared in numerous anthologies and magazines across the world. He has curated a number of high-profile seasons and retrospectives at the British Film Institute, the Deutsches Filmmuseum in Frankfurt, as well as Austin Fantastic Fest, Montreal's Fantasia Film Festival, Wroclaw's New Horizons Festival, and the Thessaloniki International Film Festival. He is the co-founder, with Chris MaGee, of the Shinsedai New Generation Japanese Cinema Festival in Toronto.

Links
Institute of Contemporary Arts http://www.ica.org.uk/30695/Seasons/Zipangu-Fest-2011.html
Zipangu Fest http://zipangufest.com/
KanZeOn www.kanzeonthemovie.com

Friend on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/zipangufest
Follow on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/zipangufest/