NEWS: 1st Zipangu Fest

The inaugural Zipangu Fest will be held at various venues across the East End of London from 23rd to 28th November 2010.

The first UK‐wide festival devoted to Japanese film, Zipangu Fest will introduce works new and old, previously unseen by mainstream UK film audiences, “to demonstrate the many identities of Japan as depicted by some of the country’s most exciting and revered talents.”

For its main event this year, Zipangu Fest will be holding screenings and other related events at venues across London’s vibrant East End. Cinema venues include the Barbican, Genesis Cinema in Whitechapel, Café 1001 in Brick Lane and the Working Men’s Club in Bethnal Green. The main body of film events will take place in London but there will be regional events to follow in Bristol, Leeds and Coventry.

The festival officially gets underway on Wednesday (24th) with the Zipangu Fest Opening Party at Café 1001 on Brick Lane, featuring the UK premiere of Pyuupiru 2001 – 2008, Daishi Matsunaga’s moving documentary charting the physical, psychological and artistic metamorphosis of the flamboyant transgender artist Pyuupiru.

Amongst other films being shown at the event are Rock Tanjo: The Movement 70s, a documentary looking at the birth of ‘New Rock’ in 1970s Japan; Live Tape, the award‐winning one‐take concert film featuring singer‐songwriter Kenta Maeno; Yuriko’s Aroma, Kota Yoshida’s humorous portrait of an aromatherapist besotted by the scent of a sweaty high‐schooler; Gen Takahashi’s epic Confessions Of A Dog, a gripping indictment of corruption within the Japanese police; Annyong Yumika, an innovative documentary homage to legendary Japanese pink film actress Yumika Hayashi who was mysteriously found dead after returning home from her 35th birthday celebrations; Love & Loathing & Lulu & Ayano, a revealing drama about exploitation and abuse in Japan’s Adult Video industry, directed by the infamous Hisayasu Sato, who will be in attendance to introduce the film; the all new Mutant Girls Squad, from Noboru Iguchi, director of The Machine Girl and Robo-Geisha; and Footed Tadpoles, a quirky coming‐of‐age drama from Tomoya Maeno.

Zipangu Fest will also be presenting a selection of Japanese independent animation. The Zipangu Fest Ero Guro Mash Up Night features three nightmarishly morbid works in the ‘erotic grotesque’ tradition from the underground animators Hiroshi Harada and Naoyuki Niiya, while the Beyond Anime: CALF Animation programme features recent envelope‐pushing works from Mirai Mizue, Kei Oyama, Atsushi Wada and TOCHKA.

Also featuring as part of the main programme are the Zipangu Retro screenings of two classic but very different titles rarely shown in the UK: Children Of The Beehive (1948) and NN‐891102 (1999).

For more information on the event, visit the festival’s official website here.

Love & Loathing & Lulu & Ayano

Mutant Girls Squad