This is the title for the 2024 Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme and happily this new selection of Japanese films is widely available across Britain in February and March. This year there are 24 titles, mainly recent or new releases, but also one classic film in a 35mm print. The programme is visiting thirty cities and towns across the territory. What is both disappointing and bemusing is the absence of Leeds and Bradford from this list. The only occasion I can recall when this long -running annual programme was screened in Leeds was when the city Film Festival ran an all-year programme back in 2010. Fortunately several cities accessible from Leeds, including on public transport, are screening parts of the programme.
The best option is the Sheffield Showroom who have nine of the titles including the film classic in 35mm. This is The Snow Flurry / Kazabana, directed by Kinoshita Keisuke in 1959. The film was shot in colour and a scope format, though all the stills are in black and white; it runs for 78 minutes and will have English subtitles. Kinoshita worked in the post-war cinema, and his output was predominately comedies and melodramas; his best known film in Britain is The Ballad of Narayama / Narayama bushikô (1958). This film is a melodrama and has an ‘ofuna flavour’, a term that that denotes a bitter-sweet tone, often involving children and oppressive family situations. The drama offers tragedy, told in a non-linear narrative and involving particular Japanese social mores.
York’s City Screen has five of the titles but not the 35mm print. And Manchester HOME has seven of the titles but not the 35mm print. Both these venues have [or had] 35mm projectors but neither seem to offer this format recently. In fact, only seven of the thirty venues are screening the 35mm print.
The Japan Foundation WebPages list all the venues, all the titles and you can check out individual venues and also the dates for individual titles. I have managed to get to see a number of the titles in previous years and nearly all those in 35mm prints; always a delight. British cinephiles are really fortunate that this impressive and rewarding programme continues and manages such wide circulation.
The Case for Global Film 
I am hoping to view at least one film from the tour at the Dukes in Lancaster (also accessible by train from Leeds/Bradford). The Japan Foundation Tour is an important annual event in the UK and we have reviewed several titles from the programmes over the years.
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Singularly disappointing that neither Leeds nor Hebden Bridge have got on board with this, as I see such disparate place as Aberystwyth, Inverness and Colchester have made the effort. Hebden Bridge’s nod towards a more eclectic offering has declined markedly since the old projectionist passed on, but I would have thought that the Hyde Park with its additional smaller screen might have taken on four or five. There may be some internal politics here I am unaware of. I guess I can look forward to an afternoon out in Manchester when I pick the most promising offering for me.
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Good point about the Hyde Park with its second screen. Leeds has supported East Asian cinema in general very well in the past and has included lots of Japanese archive screenings reviewed on this blog. I’ll leave Keith to comment on the current Hyde Park programme. I share your concern about Hebden Bridge, although they have no history of supporting the Japan Foundation Tour (at least in my memory). I’m a bit worried about what lies behind their possible plans to create a second screen in the circle area. I don’t oppose a second screen as such but what they intend to do with the programming if they go ahead does sound problematic. I think there are details on their website. Ironically my best experience of the Japan Foundation was when the tour was online during lockdown! I’m sure I saw a film from the tour at Square Chapel a few years ago. I wonder what the programme of the new Light Cinema in Huddersfield will be like later this year?
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I did not know that the senior projectionist at Hebden Bridge Picture House had died; a sad loss. It also explains why the cinema no longer seems to have regular 35mm screenings. As for the programming, I think this changed when there was a change of manager in 2019.
As for a second screen; the web page suggests that the balcony would provide an ‘easily adapted’ space seems the heights of optimism.
The newly developed Hyde Park Picture House offers an example of the problems with some adaptations. The screen two is in the basement. It is well designed but there is limited hie height. So if people come in late they are likely to cross visibly through the projector beam and there is only a single door so there is a light source falling on the screen.
On the other hand the developed screen one is very well done. There is a new screen, and, as I noted earlier, a laser projector. There are new double doors which cut down extraneous noise.
I am less happy about the programming. The Japan Foundation programme is just one example of alternative titles which are missing.
As for 35mm: these are few at the moment: none of the Powell and Pressburger titles were screened from 35mm prints. However, the 35mm projectors are Meccanico. Because thew new screen is slightly larger the projectors require new lenses for the focal length; at the moment the projected image does not exactly fit the masking. It seems the cinema is having difficulty acquiring such lenses.
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