Wednesday,
April 7 at 6:30 pm
Cherry
Blossom Festival Japanese Film Showcase
An
evening of Japanese films, co-presented by the Japan America
Society of Greater Philadelphia and the
Philadelphia Japanese Film Association.
Please
click
here for Taiko Drummers and Dancers on
Tuesday, April 6.
Hadashi
no Gen
dir. Mamoru
Shinzaki, Japan,
1983, 16mm, 80 mins, color, Japanese w/ English
subtitles
Keiji
Nakazawa attracted widespread attention in 1973 when he published
the first installment of his semiautobiographical manga,
Hadashi no Gen. Nakazawa was 6 years old in August 1945
when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.
Most
of
his family was killed in the blast, and the artist survived
through sheer luck. Nakazawa’s continuing story now fills seven
volumes (2,000 pages). Two animated features (also written by
Nakazawa), three live-action films, and an opera have been based
on Gen.
Drawn
from writer Keiji Nakazawa’s true life experiences in the aftermath
of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima,
Hadashi no Gen tells the story of one family’s struggle
to survive against overwhelming odds. Six year-old Gen has lived
practically his entire life in the shadow of war. Yet he is
not prepared for the horrors which follow the bombing of Hiroshima.
Hadashi
no Gen is completely unlike
the musical fairy tales and slapstick comedies Americans associate
with animation, but its powerful antiwar message has won admiration
around the world.
Kaze
no Tani no Naushika
dir.
Hayao Miyazaki,
Japan,
1984, video, 84 mins, color, Japanese w/ English subtitles
Nausicaa,
the princess of a small nation, lives in a world devastated
by a holocaust called the “Seven Days of Fire.” She tries to
stop other warring nations from destroying themselves and from
destroying the only means by which their world can be saved
from the spread of polluted wastelands.
This
film is directed by Hayao Miyazaki, who won an Academy Award
for the famous Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi).
The film Nausicaa is based on a manga (comic
book) by the same name, which has been the lifework of Miyazaki.
For 13 years (with some breaks), he wrote monthly installments
of this complicated and thought-provoking manga about
a princess who struggles to live in a world filled with ecological
disasters, war, hatred and anger. By the time he finished he
had tackled some of the most difficult themes in literature:
the conflicts between man and nature, war and peace, hope and
despair, and the meaning of life and death.
Depicting
a world so different from ours, he drew intricate and detailed
artwork ofa strangely beautiful forest and creatures who inhabit
it, of strange looking machines such as flying gunships, and
of people and their lives which seem to be set in the Medieval
Era. Yet, the issues which Nausicaa faced on her journey are
the very issues we face today.
Nausicaa
has been highly acclaimed and is very popular in Japan, selling
over 10 million copies. In 1994, Miyazaki received the Japan
Manga Artists’ Association Award.
Please visit www.jasgp.org for
more information about the Cherry Blossom Festival and the Japan
America Society.
Tickets are $6.00 for general admission, $5.00 for I House members,
students and seniors. Available one hour before showtime at
the International House box office.
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