Nagisa OSHIMA 大島渚
A Town Of Love And Hope
Nippon Retro ²
Japan in the late 1950s: Masao lives in a poor district of Tokyo with his sick mother and his little sister. Apart from school, he has to care for the family’s subsistence by selling pigeons, which fly back to Masao from their new owners after a while. In spite of his good grades and the support from his teacher, the lack of understanding from his social environment for his precarious situation threatens to seal his fate. With his very first film, a ruthless accusation of Japanese class society, Nagisa OSHIMA displeased the head of Shochiku film studios, so that the film had only a limited run in theaters despite getting good reviews.
Guests:
Luk VAN HAUTE
愛と希望の街
Ai to kibo no machi
Japan 1959
62 minutes
World sales
Shochiku
Film print
Japan Foundation
Cast
Hiroshi FUJIKAWA, Yoko MOCHIZUKI, Michiko ITO, Yuki TOMINAGA, Fumio WATANABE
About Nagisa OSHIMA
大島渚
Nagisa OSHIMA (1932 – 2013) studied political history at the University of Kyoto. He then became a film critic and later editor-in-chief of a film magazine, before learning his craft as an assistant director at Shochiku Studios. With his own production company Sozosha, he created pioneering films in the field of Japanese New Wave cinema, making his international breakthrough with IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES (AI NO CORRIDA) in 1976.
In cooperation with Japan Foundation Tokyo and Japanisches Kulturinstitut (The Japan Foundation)
