Amidst the in-between — Documentary films from Japan [PDF]

Screening and conversation – Eduardo Thomas with Günter Nitschke OV, English subtitles

Eduardo Thomas will present a fragment of his ongoing research into the Japanese concept of “ma” (a structuring absence), screening short films by Matsumoto Toshio and Ito Takashi and a feature film by Kawase Naomi. In conversation with Günter Nitschke — an iconoclastic Kyoto-based architect and urban planner — and the filmmakers, Thomas will address this specifically Japanese concept, which challenges such binary distinctions as space/time, inside/outside, emptiness/fullness, and foregrounds the spaces between elements. The three filmmakers have employed strategies like unusual montage techniques, off-centre framing and abstract electronic
music to examine traditional subjects in distinctly non-traditional ways.

• Matsumoto Toshio: “Ginrin”, Japan 1955, 35 mm, 16 min
• “The Song of Stone”, Japan1963, 16 mm, 24 min
• “Atman”, Japan 1975, 16 mm, 12 min
• “Sway: Yuragi”, Japan 1985, 16 mm, 8 min
• “Engram”, Japan 1987, 16 mm, 12 min
• Ito Takashi: “Spacy”, Japan 1981, 16 mm, 10 min [Link]
• “Ghost”, Japan 1984, 16 mm, 6 min
• “Venus”, Japan 1990, 16 mm, 5 min
• “The Moon”, Japan 1994, 16 mm, 7 min
• “Unbalance”, Japan 2006, video, 5 min
• Kawase Naomi: “Tsuioku no dansu”, Japan 2002, Beta Sp, 65 min

Haus der Kulturen der Welt, June 2, 2012, 12 noon – 4 pm.