Special Events

SAND LAND

Pre-Film Event

Akira Toriyama Trivia

Sydney

Palace Moore Park | 26 October, 2024 (Sat)
Screening: 12:30 – 14:30
Event: Approx. 12:00 – 12:30

Calling all anime superfans! In celebration of the late Akira Toriyama, we will be holding an in-cinema trivia event focusing on the legendary manga artist’s works prior to this screening of SAND LAND in Sydney. Tickets to the Sydney Manga and Anime Show (SMASH!) 2025 and Kinokuniya gift vouchers are up for grabs for a handful of lucky winners!

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©BIRD STUDIO/SHUEISHA ©SANDLAND Film Partners

MATCHED
マッチング

Pre-Film Event

Werewolf Game (人狼)

Sydney

Palace Norton Street | 26 October, 2024 (Sat)
Screening: 20:45 – 22:45
Event: Approx 20:00 – 20:45

Join us for a fun-filled session of the Japanese murder mystery game Jinrou, also known as Mafia or Werewolf! Prior to this screening of MATCHED, 6-8 participants from the audience will play a role in this game of light-hearted backstabbing and deception. The last ones standing will win a special prize. Movie ticket required to participate.

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©2024 “Matched” Film Partners

The Ballad of Narayama
楢山節考

Pre-Film Talk Event

Imamura: A Messy Japanese Filmmaker?

Sydney
Art Gallery of New South Wales | 27 October, 2024 (Sun)
Screening: 14:00 – 16:20
Talk: 13:10 – 13:40

Famously, Imamura said “I like to make messy films.” Hon. Associate Professor Jane Mills, PhD (UNSW) will discuss how many cinephiles and critics, however, dispute the director’s claim, pointing to a consistent style and recurring themes, ideas, images and characters. Although he disparaged the notion of a Japanese filmic essence, he has nonetheless been described as “The most Japanese of Japanese filmmakers” —an epithet usually reserved for Yasujiro Ozu and Akira Kurosawa.

What are we to make of this bold, often outrageous, certainly contradictory, filmmaker? Can messiness coexist with orderliness? Is Imamura an “essentially” Japanese filmmaker, or is this notion a chimera?

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©IMAMURA PRODUCTION / TOEI COMPANY, LTD.

The Imaginary
屋根裏のラジャー

Post-Screening Event

Animation Showcase

Sydney

Palace Norton St | 27 October, 2024 (Sun)
Screening: 14:00 – 16:00

If you’ve ever wanted to see your imaginary friend come to life, now’s your chance! In a drawing competition run in collaboration with The Sydney Manga and Anime Show (SMASH!) participants will be able to submit drawings of their imaginary character for the chance to have their creations animated and shown on the big screen, following a session of The Imaginary in Sydney.

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© Ponoc

The Ballad of Narayama
楢山節考

Post-Film Talk Event

Everyday Desire: The Films of Shohei Imamura

Melbourne

ACMI | 2 November, 2024 (Sat)
Screening: 14:30 – 16:50
Talk: 17:00 – 17:40

Adrian Danks, Associate Professor at RMIT University and Co-curator and President of the Melbourne Cinémathèque, will chart Imamura’s movement from the youth cycle of the early 1960s to his work’s increasing preoccupation with the resilience and place of women in Japanese society in such landmark films as Insect Woman and The Ballad of Narayama.

The talk will also examine the director’s anthropological and often primal approach to filmmaking which forges together fiction and documentary and highlights aspects of Japanese life and society that persist in the face of wide-scale modernisation and westernisation.

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©IMAMURA PRODUCTION / TOEI COMPANY, LTD.