Masumura x Wakao

Restored to mark his centenary last year, the films of Yasuzô Masumura (1924 - 86) are one of the exciting rediscoveries of world cinema. His filmmaking through the 1950s and 60s reveals an adventurous, eclectic style which challenged post-war Japanese complacency. Masumura was the first Japanese student to study film at the Centro Sperimentale Di Cinematografia in Rome in the early 1950s, where he would be exposed to the films of such Italian luminaries as Fellini and Antonioni.

"The work of Masumura has been a revelation to me. The films we are screening are a snapshot of a rich, provocative and varied filmmaker who made distinctive cinematic critiques of contemporary Japanese life. His creative partnership with Ayako Wakao centres a complex portrayal of the role of women in Japan with disruptive and transgressive female passions and desires at the heart of each film." Mark Cosgrove, Cinema Rediscovered Founder

The films all feature Ayako Wakao, one of the great Japanese actresses with whom Masumura made twenty films. Wakao brings an intensity to the female leads in each of these four films which explores and explodes traditional female representations with a radical approach to genre and visual style. The festival closes with the UK premiere of Yasuzō Masumura’s impassioned drama The Wife of Seisaku (Seisaku no Tsuma, 1965), which acts as a fierce critique of Japanese society; presented in a striking new restoration to close this year’s festival.

All the films have been restored in 4K by Kadokawa Corporation.

Presented in partnership with the Japan Foundation.

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