Bonus Episode 9: Zipangu Fest 2011
Welcome to our second annual podcast episode covering the Zipangu Festival in London. This year's festival ran from November 18th - 24th, 2011 in London and, much like last year's, featured films both contemporary and classic and from a wide spectrum of genres. In this episode, we interview the following filmmakers and people involved with the festival:
Jasper Sharp: Jasper is the Director and Chief Curator of the festival and author of the book Behind the Pink Curtain: The Complete History of Japanese Sex Cinema (FAB Press, 2008)
Neil Cantwell, Tim Grabham, Ta2mi: Neil and Tim produced KanZeOn, a 2011 documentary about the role of sound and music in Buddhism and their dissemination into everyday Japanese life. Ta2mi is a hip-hop DJ, beatboxer, and Buddhist priest who appears in the film. Ta2mi also gives a banging impromptu beatbox performance of the traditional Japanese folk song "Sakura".
Shinpei Takeda: Tijuana-based Takeda is an artist and filmmaker whose deeply affecting 2009 documentary Hiroshima Nagasaki Download starts as a project to interview World War II A-Bomb survivors becomes a personal journey of memory and experience.
Takashi Makino: Makino is a talented multi-disciplined artist and experimental filmmaker who has apprenticed under the famed stop animators the Quay Brothers. His Enter the Cosmos and Season Inter View programs and entry in the Nippon Re-Read: Radical Fragments and Abstractions from Japan I & II program offer visuals and audio accompaniment (by artists such as Jim O'Rourke and Takashi Ishida) that provide a view beyond the human imagination.
Email: vcinema@variedcelluloid.net
