7 + 8 May 2007

Kanai Katsu, a trained cameraman, is one of the great eclectic eccentrics of Japanese cinema. Beginning in 1969 with Mujin rettô (The Desert Archipelago), Kanai has created in three working phases a streamlined cinematic oeuvre consisting almost exclusively of short and medium-length films and videos.

Kanai is a wild and unrestrained, arch visionary, an iconoclast/iconographer, in whose works classic and contemporary art, pop and high culture from his own world and the West mix it up with gusto - Arrabalesque excesses meet up with the focused physicality of Butô, political issues are articulated in the gaudy vernacular of Manga ... The title of one of his most beautiful films says it all: Yume hashiru (Dream Running).

Programme 1:

Toki ga fubuku (Time Blows On), 1991, 62 min

Seinaru Gekijô (Holy Theatre), 1998/2003, 29 min

Super Documentary: Zen'ei-senjutsu (Super Documentary: The Avant-Garde Senjutsu), 2003, 33 min (FIPRESCI-Prize at the 50th Oberhausen Festival)

Programme 2:

Mujin rettô (The Desert Archipelago), 1969, 55'

GOOD-BYE, 1971, 52'

7 + 8 May 2007 at the Lichtburg Filmpalast

Contact: Carsten Spicher