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A stop-motion puppet animation adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson's tale The Ugly Duckling.

Pinku from 1968.

1967 Japanese movie

A night in the life of an apartment building features interesting occurrences, as seen through its lit windows.

First projected onto Jiro Takamatsu's naked back at the legendary Sogetsu Art Center for the performance Screen Play, Colors is an experiment in concoction. Iimura drops paint into oil and water and melts wax as he films the colors take shape whilst simultaneously dissolving into one another. An eerie soundtrack by Yasunao Tone of Group Ongaku and Fluxus creates an impression of music being the witch behind the craft. (Julian Ross)

Pinku from 1965.

Ogawa Shinsuke’s directorical debut traces the struggle of four students who lead the opposition against the Ministry of Education’s proposed revision to the university correspondence school systems in 1966.

This film takes us into the microscopic world of the plankton that mass in the oceans. Their bodies ultimately turn to marine snow and accumulate on the ocean floor where, across vast time spans, they transform into crude oil.

A short film by Kuri Youji. A man plants a flower and waits for it to bear fruit...

One night, the phone rings at the home of the Takiguchi family. The daughter Reiko hands the receiver to her father, who then instantly goes up in flames and is burned to death! Subsequently, another incident of apparently spontaneous human combustion occurs right before Reiko’s eyes. Made for "Operation: Mystery".

A group of kids are stranded on a volcanic deserted island.

Pinku film from 1967.

1962 Japanese movie

Horror pinku from 1965.

An experimental film edited from footage of the Japanese countryside.

1964 musical.

A re-edited, feature length compilation of the two parts of Ôfuji's The Great Sage Shakyamuni Buddha - the culmination of Noburô Ôfuji's monochrome silhouette films. After a portentous dream about a white elephant, the ancient Hindu princess Maya gives birth to a prince. Reared in seclusion from the troubles of the world, Prince Siddhartha is troubled by sights of poverty and deprivation when he is 12 years old. He is married to a beautiful wife, but he is unable to bear the thought of others suffering, and leaves the palace in search of an answer. While sitting beneath a tree, he achieves enlightenment. Planned as a nine-reel life of Buddha, but exhibited in Cannes as ‘Part One’ with only 6 reels completed, this late work by Noburô Ôfuji was not completed until after his death. It was only in 1961 that it was finally exhibited as a full 72-minute film (comprising 10 reels).

A fascinating glimpse of the Tokyo Paralympics Games of 1964 and the pioneering athletes who participated in them.

Pinku from 1969.

Pink film directed by Shinya Yamamoto.

Early experimental PR "cine-poem" by Toshio Matsumoto. Commissioned by Kansai Electricity, the film paints an abstract, near-wordless retelling of the development of power stations in Japan, through to the presumed oncoming advent of nuclear power.

Tokusatsu/Horror Invisible film from 1960, produced by Daiei Motion Picture Company.

Pink film by Kan Mukai.

Pink short film directed by Toshio Okuwaki.

Short animated film by Manabe Hiroshi

Zatoichi pink film parody from 1969

Cameraman Yonesaku Kobayashi (1905-2005) is a pioneer of scientific films of Japan. He and producer Sozo Okada made many scientific educational films, and in 60's - 70's, many avant-garde composers composed music for these films.

1960 movie directed by Taizō Fuyushima

A non-narrative tribute to the seaside town of Onomichi, where Obayashi grew up and where most of these films were made.

A documentary focusing on the things and animals necessary for the Olympics in Tokyo in 1964.

At a bar in Honmoku, Yokohama, several yakuza members, desperate for some spare change, surrounded a pair of bartenders. Just as one of the yakuza was about to attack the blind bartender, a man who had been sitting at the bar turned around and slammed a left straight into the man's face. The man's name was Paul. He would later become Takeshi Fuji.

Independent animation by Hayashi Seiichi.

Pinku from 1969.

The homoerotic poetry of Mutsuo Takahashi sets the stage for these associated images based on male desire.

Pink film directed by Kan Mukai.

Yoichi Takabayashi’s “Musashino” is a black and white film with sound that takes place in the woods of the legendary Musashino Plain, located on the outskirts of Tokyo. Originally part of The Gate Theater’s Erotica Neurotica program, its eroticism is not explicit, but rather suggestive—a scopophilia or love of watching, of peeking, of lingering and observing both the woman in her affection for the woods and the evocative landscape.

Short animated film by Yanagihara Ryouhei.

Pinku from 1968.

Short by Motoharu Jonouchi.

A string of weird incidents occur in Kyoto. Elderly men die after their ocular nerves are burned when they peek into antique urns on the veranda at their homes. Part of "Operation: Mystery".

Writes Ando, "Oh! My Mother was the first work I made using a newly bought 16mm camera I had purchased with the writer Shuji Terayama in Paris. This piece was selected for the Oberhausen International Film Festival. In 1969, there were, of course, no video cameras like ones we see now, and color TVs were only found at broadcast television studios. I had just been employed at the TBS (Tokyo Broadcasting System), and I often snuck into the studios after hours to experiment with the equipment. Oh! My Mother was made using the feedback effect, which is produced by infinitely expanding the image by looping the video."

A short film made up of Episodes 9 through 10 of the 8th Man anime series. The film premiered at the first iteration of the Toei Manga Festival "Manga Grand Parade".

1969 Pink film

Pinku from 1965.

Pink film directed by Kan Mukai.

"A work documenting the VAN Film Science Research Center’s space before shut down. VAN, which Jonouchi was a member, was established by the original and new members of the Nihon University Film Study Club (Nichidai Eiken) in Ogikubo section of Tokyo in 1960. VAN was a place where not only filmmakers but also people working in various media, including fine artists, musicians, photographers, and editors, could assemble, serving as an active center for creating historically important works and events." - Collaborative Cataloging Japan

"A work documenting Ankoku Butoh dancer Tatsuji Hijikata’s Revolt of the Flesh (Nikutai no hanran). The work established the relation between Revolt of the Flesh with uprising through the unique methods of photography and editing that is found in Jonouchi’s Gewaltopia series (1968) which represented the student protest movement." - Collaborative Cataloging Japan

This film documents student preparations for the final phases of the 1969 protests against the renewal of the security treaty.

Pink film directed by Kan Mukai.

Interesting conceptual film where people of various ages and professions are asked to sit on a chair for 15 minutes with nothing to do. We see how bored and uneasy modern people start to feel when wasting time.

A documentary film produced to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Iwanami Shoten's founding. It depicts the history of Iwanami Shoten over a 50-year period from its founding in 1913 to 1963, using films, publications, photographs, etc. from that time.

Pinku from 1965.

A short puppet animation movie by Kazuhiko Watanabe.

Kan Mukai's directorial debut.

Pinku from 1965.

1962 Japanese documentary

Short film for the "A Commercial for Myself" programme.

A touching portrait of his partner Akiko and the days following their wedding, Iimura's conceptual rigour loosens in favour of intimacy in Honey Moon. (Julian Ross)