An overview of the life and work of legendary Japanese filmmaker Kijû Yoshida, a notable figure of the Japanese New Wave.
A documentary about Yoshishige (Kijû) Yoshida's creative process for his most significant film, the 1969 avantgarde tour-de-force Eros + Massacre (1969).
A documentary about cinematographer Gabriel Veyre's adventures introducing cinema to Japan and South America. Veyre was a traveling cameraman for the Lumiere Co. He declared cinema dead only 2 years after its inception after he saw a villager jerk a woman's head to face the camera when he was filming a small group of them.
Yoshida grew close to Ozu Yasujiro during his time at Shochiku, where he was able to observe the legendary master at work. Although Yoshida and his generation outspokenly rejected the values of Ozu, Kurosawa and the older humanist filmmakers, over the years Yoshida found himself increasingly drawn back to Ozu’s films, fascinated by their unique rigor, formal language and delicate balance between comedy and tragedy. For Japanese television, Yoshida adapted his own text into a four part documentary, which he also condensed into the one hour version.
Yoshishige Yoshida (吉田 喜重 Yoshida Yoshishige), also known as Kijū Yoshida, was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. Graduating from Tokyo University, Yoshida entered the Shōchiku studio in 1955 and debuted as a director in 1960 with Rokudenashi. He was a central member of what came to be called the "Shōchiku Nouvelle Vague" along with Nagisa Oshima and Masahiro Shinoda, and his works have been studied under the larger rubric of the Japanese New Wave. Like many of his New Wave cohorts, he felt restricted under the studio system and left Shōchiku in 1964 to start his own production company where he directed such films as Eros + Massacre. He has directed more than 20 films between 1960 and 2004. He has also written a number of philosophical books about his work and the cinema, including an award-winning study of Yasujirō Ozu.
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