Japanese Film Festival 2024

The Japanese Film Festival (JFF) Special Series returns to cinemas in 2024 and proudly presents the work of filmmaker Shоhei Imamura (1926–2006), a socially engaged auteur whose mission was to portray a true, unpolished image of Japan beyond the veil of conventional stereotypes and the post-war national agenda.

Drawn to film by his love of avant-garde theatre and inspired by Akira Kurosawa’s freedom of expression in Rashomon, Imamura soon found himself rebelling against the big studios of the Japanese film industry. In particular, he opposed what he saw as the old-fashioned style of Yasujiro Ozu, the director he first assisted during his years at Shochiku.

Relinquishing the subtlety and conservative nature of masters who came before him, Imamura sought to celebrate the most primitive and spontaneous aspects of Japanese life and cultural conscience. As an avid reader of Japanese sociology, Imamura’s research influenced the inquisitive quality that characterises his mature cinematic style, bringing to his films an anthropological eye which observes down-to-earth characters with an objective yet respectful lens. Together with his high-profile colleagues Nagisa Oshima and Masahiro Shinoda, Imamura began the most significant part of his directorial career as a representative of the New Wave movement in Japan.

In his personal life, Imamura mingled with the outcasts, the poor and the oppressed. He developed an interest in documenting the ongoing struggles of Japan’s seedy underbelly and his characters’ quest for individual freedom, portraying the unrestrained side of a nation globally perceived as coldly efficient and stoic.

Permeated with an unseen taste for the irreverent and the illicit, many of Imamura’s films focus on previously taboo themes such as superstition and sexuality, challenging audiences to transcend traditionally established values and socially acceptable models.

From engrossing thrillers to dark comedies, award-winning dramas and social satires, this expansive retrospective showcases a selection of Imamura’s thematically provocative and technically innovative films, spanning three decades of his illustrious career.

This FREE Special Series program is part of the Japanese Film Festival 2024 presented by The Japan Foundation, Sydney and made possible by The Japan Foundation Film Library.