I’M READY FOR MY CLOSE-UP, Friday 16 December, 5-5:30pm, Resonance 104.4 FM
Virginie Sélavy and Electric Sheep contributors Jason Wood, director of programming for Curzon cinemas and author of The Faber Book of Mexican Cinema and 100 Road Movies, former Plan B editor and musician Frances Morgan, and writer Eleanor McKeown talk about the best films, shorts, re-issues and events of the year.
Virginie Sélavy talks to Julian Ross about the summer’s seasons of experimental and independent Japanese cinema of the 1960s and 70s. In the 60s, the Art Theatre Guild of Japan (ATG) in Tokyo became the centre of a vibrant independent filmmaking scene, encouraging bold experiments and innovative collaborations with other artists. The discussion focuses on the ATG, its related space Theatre Scorpio, and the films the ATG helped produce or distribute, including works by Nagisa Ôshima, Kôji Wakamatsu and Shôhei Imamura.
Julian Ross is a commissioning editor at Vertigo Magazine and the programme coordinator for the Theatre Scorpio season at Close-Up Film Centre and the Art Theatre Guild season at the BFI Southbank.
I’M READY FOR MY CLOSE-UP, Friday 18 November, 5-5:30pm, Resonance 104.4 FM
To mark the opening of Zipangu, the UK’s foremost Japanese film festival, Virginie Sélavy talks to festival director Jasper Sharp and to Neil Cantwell and Tim Grabham, directors of the opening film, KanZeOn. KanZeOn is a unique documentary on the role music and sound play in Japanese Buddhism looking at three musicians: Akinobu Tatsumi, a young Buddhist priest who is also a hip-hop DJ and is prone to bouts of beat-boxing in the forest; Eri Fujii, master of the sho, an ancient Chinese bamboo wind instrument evoking the cry of the phoenix; and Akihiro Iitomi, a performer of Noh theatre and jazz lover. We are delighted to announce that Tatsumi Akinobu will give a performance of his Buddhist chanting and beat-boxing skills on the show.
In this special Halloween-themed podcast, Alex Fitch talks to three directors who have made films about man’s relationship with the land. At this year’s FrightFest, Robin Hardy discusses his classic horror film The Wicker Man and its new, belated thematic sequel The Wicker Tree, which both deal with fertility and terrifying pagan rites, while Larry Fessenden talks about his eco-themed monster movies No Telling, Wendigo and The Last Winter. In addition, in a Q&A recorded at the East End Film Festival, Alex interviews Steven Eastwood, co-director of Buried Land, a ‘mockumentary’/docu-drama about the real-life discovery in a small town in Bosnia of an ancient, buried pyramid, which may re-invent mankind’s knowledge of pre-Christian architecture and empire-building, but in the short term has changed the fortunes of people in the area.
Podcast produced by Alex Fitch.
Sex Jack + talk
Date: Tuesday 15 November 2011
Doors: 7pm
Film: 7:30pm
Talk: 9:30pm
Venue: Horse Hospital
Address: Colonnade, Bloomsbury, London WC1N 1JD
Price: £6/£4
Horse Hospital website
Electric Sheep and Strange Attractor present a screening of Sex Jack (1970, 69 mins), directed by yakuza-turned-filmmaker Kôji Wakamatsu and written by his politically engaged acolyte Masao Adachi. Set against the background of the 60s Japanese student movement, it follows a group of young revolutionaries who take refuge in the flat of a stranger. Screened at the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs at the 1971 Cannes festival, it remains one of Wakamatsu’s most striking works. Wakamatsu and Adachi chose to work in the pink film (soft porn) industry as a way of ensuring financial independence and artistic freedom, and Sex Jack offers a typically radical mix of sex and politics. Denouncing both government repression and the apathy of the revolutionary movement, the film paints a disillusioned picture of collective action, ultimately suggesting that liberation from all shackles can only come from individual action. With thanks to the French-based international label Dissidenz, which has recently released three Kôji Wakamatsu DVD box-sets.
Sex Jack will be preceded by the black and white animated tale Man-Eater Mountain (dir Naoyuki Niiya, 2008, 28 mins), which uses paper theatre to tell a gruesome folk tale. A couple of police inspectors and their guide take a serial killer to the mountains to find the bodies of his victims, but soon they face the demons that reside there. Both beautifully atmospheric and hellishly nightmarish, it has Bosch-like visions of blood-sucking trees, impaled animals, bodies torn apart or eaten by demons. Man-Eater Mountain is presented by Zipangu Fest, the first UK-wide festival devoted to Japanese film, which runs from 18 to 24 November.
The films will be followed by a talk with Jasper Sharp, author of Behind the Pink Curtain: The Complete History of Japanese Sex Cinema, director of Zipangu Fest and co-editor of the Japanese cinema website Midnight Eye, and Julian Ross, commissioning editor at Vertigo Magazine and programme coordinator for the Theatre Scorpio season at Close-Up Film Centre and the Art Theatre Guild season at the BFI Southbank in July-August 2011. The talk will be hosted by Electric Sheep editor Virginie Sélavy.
Doors at 7pm, film at 7:30pm, talk at 9:30pm. Full details on the Horse Hospital website. Buy tickets from WeGotTickets.
Strange Attractor is an independent publisher that celebrates unpopular culture.
Dissidenz International handles world sales of committed alternative and maverick art-house films with a special focus on niches. Dissidenz International is a label of Blaq Out.
Zipangu Fest is the first UK-wide festival devoted to Japanese film and runs from 18 to 24 November.
Virginie Sélavy talks to Simon Rumley, director of the unpredictable murder ballad Red White and Blue, which tells the complex, violent tale of an emotionally reluctant girl and an edgy loner. One of the best thrillers of 2010 and a great take on screwed up love and serial killers.
Red White and Blue is released in UK cinemas on September 30 by Trinity Entertainment.
In a companion piece to our May podcast on Secret Societies, we have a panel discussion recorded in the atmospheric confines of a Masonic Lodge on Liverpool Street in London as part of the East End Film Festival, including talks on Jack the Ripper, witches’ covens and religious cults in film. Speakers include Electric Sheep editor Virginie Selavy, assistant editor Alex Fitch, Nollywood scholar Nicola Woodham, filmmaker and horror specialist Jennifer Eiss, and Jim Harper, author of Flowers From Hell: The Modern Japanese Horror Film. Includes clips from Murder by Decree, Season of the Witch, The Wicker Man and Rosemary’s Baby.
Podcast produced by Alex Fitch
Electric Sheep editor Virginie Sélavy talks to Russian scholar Sergei Kapterev (Institute of Cinema Art in Moscow) about Soviet science fiction and the connection between SF cinema and politics, the impact of the space race and the Cold War period, Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris (1972) and Stalker (1979),and Roger Corman’s re-edits of popular Soviet SF films. (Originally broadcast 15/07/11 on Resonance FM)
Plus, in a Q&A recorded at SCI-FI-LONDON in April 2010, Alex Fitch talks to Polish poster designer Andrzej Klimowski and SF writer/journalist Wojciech Orliński about cinematic adaptations of the work of Stanislaw Lem from Steven Soderbergh and Andrei Tarkovsky’s adaptations of Solaris to more offbeat films such as Edward Zebrowski’s The Hospital of Transfiguration.
Podcast produced by Alex Fitch
Thundercrack! + talk
Date: Tuesday 20 September 2011
Doors: 6:30pm
Talk: 7pm
Film: 8:30pm
Venue: Horse Hospital
Address: Colonnade, Bloomsbury, London WC1N 1JD
Price: £6/£4
Horse Hospital website
Buy tickets
Electric Sheep is very proud to be involved in Scala Forever, the celebration of the legendary Scala cinema organised by the Roxy Bar and Screen taking place across a range of London venues from August 13 to October 2.
In collaboration with Strange Attractor Press, Electric Sheep will present an evening of film and talk on Tuesday 20 September at the Horse Hospital. The event will start with a discussion, hosted by Electric Sheep editor Virginie Sélavy, about the life and times of the Scala with Jane Giles, former Scala film programmer and currently Head of Content at the BFI, horror maestro Kim Newman and Mark Pilkington, publisher of Strange Attractor Press and a regular Scala visitor. This will be followed by a screening of demented horror porno-comedy Thundercrack! (1975, dir Curt Mcdowell, starring and written by George Kuchar).
Doors at 6:30pm, talk at 7pm, film at 8:30pm. Buy tickets
The very exciting Scala Forever programme includes John Waters, Dario Argento, Russ Meyer and Fassbinder nights, a Turkish Grindhouse evening, a Jack Smith programme, a screening of one of our favourite 60s Italian exploitation films The Frightened Woman, and much more! For full details, please go to the Scala Forever website, or find them on Facebook and Twitter.
I’M READY FOR MY CLOSE-UP, Friday 15 July, 5-5:30pm, Resonance 104.4 FM
To mark the Kosmos: A Soviet Space Odyssey season at BFI Southbank, Virginie Sélavy talks to Russian scholar Sergei Kapterev, from the Institute of Film Art in Moscow, about Soviet science fiction, including the first Russian SF film, Aelita Queen of Mars (1924), the connection between SF cinema and politics, the impact of the space race and the Cold War period, pioneering filmmaker Pavel Klushantsev, Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris (1972) and Stalker (1979), and Roger Corman’s re-edits of popular Soviet sci-fi films.
This programme coincides with our exploration of Andrei Tarkovsky’s work throughout July.