² Nippon Retro
TURNING POINT – JAPANESE CINEMA OF THE 90S
After the collapse of the studio system in the 1990s, a new generation of directors emerged who created ambitious films with low budgets but great artistic freedom, marking a turning point in Japanese film history. In this retrospective, we are showing twelve groundbreaking films that inspired the founding of the Nippon Connection Film Festival in 2000. With DEAD OR ALIVE by Takashi MIIKE, SERPENT'S PATH and CHARISMA by Kiyoshi KUROSAWA, or POSTMAN BLUES by SABU, courageous and innovative genre films were created whose directors are still regular guests at international film festivals today. The impressive debuts PORNOSTAR by Toshiaki TOYODA, HAZY LIFE by Nobuhiro YAMASHITA, and WILD ZERO by Tetsuro TAKEUCHI capture the spirit of 1990s Japan. On the occasion of our 25th anniversary, we are showing these three films from the first festival edition in 2000 once again in our former festival center, the Pupille cinema on the campus of Goethe University Frankfurt.
In cooperation with Japan Foundation Tokyo and the Japanese Cultural Institute of Cologne.
