Katsu Kanai

Kansu
金井勝
Born (1936-07-09) 9 July 1936 (age 88)
Kanagawa, Japan
NationalityJapanese
OccupationFilm director

Katsu Kanai (金井 勝, Kanai Katsu, born 9 July 1936) is a Japanese experimental and avant-garde film director. The Harvard Film Archive has called him "one of the most vital and inventive filmmakers in the history of Japanese underground film".[1]

Career

Born the son of a farmer in Kanagawa Prefecture, Kanai graduated from the College of Art of Nihon University before finding work at Daiei Film.[2][3] He later became a freelance cinematographer and founded Kanai Productions in 1968.[2] His first film, The Deserted Archipelago (1969, aka The Desert Island) won the grand prix at the Nyon International Documentary Film Festival.[4][3] His second film, Good-Bye (1971), was the "first post-war, post-liberation Japanese feature to be filmed in Korea," and according to the film scholar Oliver Dew, illustrated "how a surreal, decided non-representational approach could block the determinations of cultural essentialism".[5] His 2003 work, Super Documentary: The Avant-Garde Senjutsu, was awarded the FIPRESCI award at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen.[6] Kanai has been the subject of retrospectives at Oberhausen,[7] the Lausanne Underground Film and Music Festival,[8] and the Harvard Film Archive.[1]

Selected filmography

  • The Deserted Archipelago (1969)
  • Good-Bye (1971)
  • The Kingdom (1973)
  • The Stormy Times (1991)
  • Super Documentary: The Avant-Garde Senjutsu (2003)

References

  1. ^ a b "Under the Underground - The Visionary Cinema of Kanai Katsu". Harvard Film Archive. Retrieved 26 April 2020.
  2. ^ a b Tamura, Masaki; Kanai, Katsu. "Documentarists of Japan, No. 8: Tamura Masaki". Documentary Box. YIDFF. Retrieved 26 April 2020.
  3. ^ a b "Kanai Katsu". Image Forum. Retrieved 26 April 2020.
  4. ^ "YIDFF: 2003: National Cultural Festival". YIDFF. Retrieved 26 April 2020.
  5. ^ Dew, Oliver (2016). Zainichi Cinema: Korean-in-Japan Film Culture. Springer. p. 48. ISBN 978-3-319-40877-4. Retrieved 26 April 2020.
  6. ^ "50th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen". FIPRESCI. Retrieved 26 April 2020.
  7. ^ Clark, George (25 November 2007). "Cinema and Beyond: The 53rd International Short Film Festival Oberhausen". Senses of Cinema. Retrieved 26 April 2020.
  8. ^ Thevenot, Fabien (11 October 2013). "Le magicien de l'avant-garde". Le Courrier (in French). Retrieved 26 April 2020.