Ogawa Shinsuke and Ogawa Pro: Filmmaking and the Way to the Village + Devotion

27 Nov 2016

Two films about the working methods of Ogawa Productions and the complex dynamics between the members of the group.

Programme Notes

Filmmaking and the Way to the Village

This film was directed by a member of the Ogawa collective, Fukuda Katsuhiko, while they were finishing the documentary Sanrizuka: Heta Village. Fukuda left the collective after this film and continued making documentaries in the village of Heta.

"Ogawa Productions demonstrated a conceptualisation of cinema that aspired to collective decision-making and an unusual degree of partnership with their subjects. As a document of this process, this film raises fascinating questions about authorship in documentary cinema, and the elaborate tensions between direction and collaboration." - Markus Nornes

Filmmaking and the Way to the Village (Eiga-zukuri to mura e no michi), dir. Fukuda Katsuhiko/Ogawa Productions, Japan 1973, 16mm, b/w, 54 mins, Japanese with English subtitles.
Devotion: A Film About Ogawa Productions

A ﬁlm about Ogawa Productions directed by queer feminist visual artist and ﬁlmmaker Barbara Hammer. It is an attempt to investigate the extremely complex and hierarchical relationships among a committed group of Japanese ﬁlmmakers who dedicated up to 30 years of their lives to making ﬁlms for one man: Ogawa Shinsuke. Rare footage, stills, diaries and interviews with members of the collective as well as with Oshima Nagisa, Hara Kazuo, Haneda Sumiko and Robert Kramer, among others, make this historical inquiry visually exciting as well as valuable.

Devotion: A Film About Ogawa Productions, dir. Barbara Hammer, Japan 2000, Digibeta, colour, 84 mins.

The screening will be introduced by Markus Nornes, Professor of Asian Cinema at the University of Michigan. For many years, he was a coordinator at the Yamagata International Film Festival. He is author and editor of many books on Japanese, Chinese and Korean cinema, and his Forest of Pressure is a critical biography of Ogawa Shinsuke's collective. Fifteen years in the making, it is an approach to book writing mirroring the long-term filmmaking practices of Ogawa himself.

With thanks to Barbara Hammer, Athénée Français Cultural Centre (Matsumoto Masamichi, Takasaki Ikuko), Yamagata IDFF (Hama Haruka, Oki Masaharu)

Devotion -Trailer - TWN

We are offering a special multibuy deal for the Ogawa Season: book tickets for 2-5 screenings and get them for £9 each, or 6-9 screenings and get them for £8 each.