Amidst the in-between — Documentary films from Japan

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“, Japan 1963, 16 mm, 24 min | „Atman“, Japan 1975, 16 mm, 12 min | „Sway“, Japan 1985, 16 mm, 8 min | „Engram”, Japan 1987, 16 mm, 12 min

Ito Takashi: „Spacy“, Japan 1981, 16 mm, 10 min | „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

All films OV with English subtitles