An evening of subversive Japanese cinema: Kôji Wakamatsu’s Sex Jack + Jasper Sharp and Julian Ross in conversation
Entrance £6/£4
Advance tickets £5 click HERE
Doors at 7pm, film at 7:30pm, talk at 9:30pm.
Electric Sheep and Strange Attractor present a screening of Sex Jack (1970, 69 mins), directed by yakuza-turned-filmmaker Kôji Wakamatsu and written by his politically engaged acolyte Masao Adachi. Set against the background of the 60s Japanese student movement, it follows a group of young revolutionaries who take refuge in the flat of a stranger. Screened at the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs at the 1971 Cannes festival, it remains one of Wakamatsu’s most striking works. Wakamatsu and Adachi chose to work in the pink film (soft porn) industry as a way of ensuring financial independence and artistic freedom, and Sex Jack offers a typically radical mix of sex and politics. Denouncing both government repression and the apathy of the revolutionary movement, the film paints a disillusioned picture of collective action, ultimately suggesting that liberation from all shackles can only come from individual action. With thanks to the French-based international label Dissidenz, which has recently released three Kôji Wakamatsu DVD box-sets.
Sex Jack will be preceded by the black and white animated tale Man-Eater Mountain (dir Naoyuki Niiya, 2008, 28 mins), which uses paper theatre to tell a gruesome folk tale. A couple of police inspectors and their guide take a serial killer to the mountains to find the bodies of his victims, but soon they face the demons that reside there. Both beautifully atmospheric and hellishly nightmarish, it has Bosch-like visions of blood-sucking trees, impaled animals, bodies torn apart or eaten by demons. Man-Eater Mountain is presented by Zipangu Fest, the first UK-wide festival devoted to Japanese film, which runs from 18 to 24 November.
The films will be followed by a talk with Jasper Sharp, author of Behind the Pink Curtain: The Complete History of Japanese Sex Cinema, director of Zipangu Fest and co-editor of the Japanese cinema website Midnight Eye, and Julian Ross, commissioning editor at Vertigo Magazine and programme coordinator for the Theatre Scorpio season at Close-Up Film Centre and the Art Theatre Guild season at the BFI Southbank in July-August 2011. The talk will be hosted by Electric Sheep editor Virginie Sélavy.
Electric Sheep is the online magazine for lovers of offbeat, left-field and transgressive cinema.
Strange Attractor is an independent publisher that celebrates unpopular culture.
Dissidenz International handles world sales of committed alternative and maverick art-house films with a special focus on niches. Dissidenz International is a label of Blaq Out.
Zipangu Fest is the first UK-wide festival devoted to Japanese film and runs from 18 to 24 November.