This year’s JFF Fringe program, In the Presence of Space, features a selection of documentaries that survey the intersection of Japanese contemporary art, music and architecture through film. In celebration of the Sydney Modern Project at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the series spotlights Japanese architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, as well as their architectural firm SANAA (Sejima and Nishizawa and Associates).
Presented by The Japan Foundation, Sydney, two screenings of each film will be shown in Sydney at Palace Cinemas Central and Verona from June 24-26, 2022.
Directed and filmed by photographer Takashi Homma, Architecture, Time and Kazuyo Sejima closely follows Sejima’s creative process from conception to completion. Over the course of three and a half years, the documentary covers the making of Sejima’s architectural masterpiece, a new building for Osaka University of Arts.
Tokyo Ride offers an unconventional city portrait through the lens of Ryue Nishizawa, as he takes filmmaking duo Bêka & Lemoine on an intimate tour of Tokyo in his beloved vintage Alfa Romeo. Against the backdrop of a dreary day in Tokyo, Nishizawa points out the places that have influenced him and some of his own architectural projects within the city.
In Moriyama-san, experience one week in the life of Mr. Moriyama, the Japanese art, architecture and music enlightened amateur who occupies Moriyama House, the iconic residence built by Pritzker-Prize winner Ryue Nishizawa (SANAA). Within this intimate space, filmmaker Ila Bêka captures the unique personality of the owner: an urban hermit living in a small oasis of peace and contemplation in the heart of Tokyo.
An artist shrouded in mystery, Rei Naito refuses to be filmed on camera. Regardless, A Room of Her Own : Rei Naito and Light attempts to get close to the essence of Naito’s art without pointing the camera at the artist herself. This art documentary explores the pulsating space of Matrix, an immersive artwork constructed in collaboration with SANAA architect Ryue Nishizawa at the Teshima Art Museum. Five women who are enticed by the world of Naito’s art are also featured, as they visit the installation.
The JFF Fringe Program will also include a special guest event featuring Professor Michael Tawa, an architect and Professor of Architecture at The University of Sydney. Tickets are now on sale at the Japanese Film Festival website.
SPECIAL GUEST EVENT
Ambient Circumspection: Nishizawa’s Moriyama House and Bêka & Lemoine’s Moriyama-San
June 24 (Friday)
Film screening: 6pm-7pm
Talk: 7pm-7:50pm
In this post-screening talk, Michael Tawa reflects on the atmospheric capacity of architecture and cinema. The attentive cinematography of Moriyama-San and the archipelagic architectonics of Ryue Nishizawa’s 2005 Moriyama House both operate as frames or infrastructures that enable place, and being-in-place, to take place, to happen, to eventuate.
SCREENING SCHEDULE
A Room of Her Own: Rei Naito and Light
Palace Verona | June 25 (Sat), 8:30pm
Palace Central | June 26 (Sun), 1pm
Architecture, Time and Kazuyo Sejima
Palace Verona | June 25 (Sat), 1pm
Palace Central | June 26 (Sun), 7pm
Moriyama-San
Palace Verona | June 24 (Fri), 6pm (Post-screening Talk)
Palace Central | June 25 (Sat), 4pm
Tokyo Ride
Palace Central | June 24 (Fri), 8:30pm
Palace Verona | June 26 (Sun), 4pm
Ticketing
General: $20.00
Concession (for students): $18.00
Discount (for Palace members): $17.00
Available at the box offices of participating cinemas and online.
