THE ANABASIS OF MAY AND FUSAKO SHIGENOBU, MASAO ADACHI AND 27 YEARS WITHOUT IMAGES
Price: $395.00 Code: 2493 |
Directed by Eric Baudelaire
2011, 66 minutes
Purchase: $395 | Classroom rental: $125
Mixing personal stories, political history, revolutionary propaganda and film theory, renowned artist Eric Baudelaire illuminates the idealism and radicalism of left-wing extremist movements in the 1970s by connecting the stories of two of its protagonists: May Shigenobu, daughter of the founder of the Japanese Red Army, and Masao Adachi, the legendary Japanese director who gave up cinema to take up arms with the Red Army and the Palestinian cause.
Founded in 1971 by Fusako Shigenobu, the Red Army was a communist militant group whose aim was to incite world revolution. They were responsible for the infamous Lod Airport Massacre, a terrorist attack that occurred on May 30, 1972, in which members of the Red Army working with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-External Operations, attacked Tel Aviv's Lod Airport (now Ben Gurion International Airport) and left 26 people dead and over 75 injured.
May Shigenobu witnessed the work of the Red Army closely. She was born in secrecy in Lebanon (her father was the leader of the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine) and led a clandestine life until the age of 27, when her mother was arrested and made to stand trial.
A screenwriter and radical activist filmmaker, Masao Adachi was a well-known figure in the Japanese underground scene of the 1960s, having directed seminal early films such as Bowl (1961) and Closed Vagina (1963) and collaborated with Kōji Wakamatsu and Nagisa Oshima. In 1974, he abandoned filmmaking and join the Red Army in Lebanon, where he lived for 27 years.
In this striking work, the voices and memories of May and Adachi (whom we never see), along with super 8mm footage and archival material, lead us on an anabasis - a journey that is both a wandering towards the unknown and a return towards home - into the political and personal fate of the Japanese Red Army, spanning 30 years, from Tokyo to Beirut.
2011, 66 minutes
Purchase: $395 | Classroom rental: $125
Mixing personal stories, political history, revolutionary propaganda and film theory, renowned artist Eric Baudelaire illuminates the idealism and radicalism of left-wing extremist movements in the 1970s by connecting the stories of two of its protagonists: May Shigenobu, daughter of the founder of the Japanese Red Army, and Masao Adachi, the legendary Japanese director who gave up cinema to take up arms with the Red Army and the Palestinian cause.
Founded in 1971 by Fusako Shigenobu, the Red Army was a communist militant group whose aim was to incite world revolution. They were responsible for the infamous Lod Airport Massacre, a terrorist attack that occurred on May 30, 1972, in which members of the Red Army working with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-External Operations, attacked Tel Aviv's Lod Airport (now Ben Gurion International Airport) and left 26 people dead and over 75 injured.
May Shigenobu witnessed the work of the Red Army closely. She was born in secrecy in Lebanon (her father was the leader of the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine) and led a clandestine life until the age of 27, when her mother was arrested and made to stand trial.
A screenwriter and radical activist filmmaker, Masao Adachi was a well-known figure in the Japanese underground scene of the 1960s, having directed seminal early films such as Bowl (1961) and Closed Vagina (1963) and collaborated with Kōji Wakamatsu and Nagisa Oshima. In 1974, he abandoned filmmaking and join the Red Army in Lebanon, where he lived for 27 years.
In this striking work, the voices and memories of May and Adachi (whom we never see), along with super 8mm footage and archival material, lead us on an anabasis - a journey that is both a wandering towards the unknown and a return towards home - into the political and personal fate of the Japanese Red Army, spanning 30 years, from Tokyo to Beirut.
Subjects & Collections
2014 Terrorism Studies Middle Eastern Studies Media Studies Criminal & Law Cinema Studies Asian Studies Flaherty Collection
Further Reading
"A Japanese Director's Path to Revolution" - Dennis Lim, The New York TimesRelated Films
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