After the success of the Kiyoshi Kurosawa retrospective, The Film Library programs a new series of works from the Japan Foundation. On this occasion, is dedicated to one of the great masters of the golden age of Japanese cinema, less known than Ozu and Mizoguchi, but considered by both as a referent. His films were always marked by great sensitivity, a luminous naturalism and a prodigious staging. Known for filming outdoors and in locations spread across the country, he always showed in his stories a deep interest in the less represented: for the kids, working women, travelers and people on the margins.
The cycle brings together a selection of essential titles that allows us to go through various stages of his filmography, from one of his best-known silent films to one of his last films, directed in the decade of the 50. On Thursday 12 of February, before the screening of Japanese Girls at the Harbor with live music, we inaugurate the cycle with Alejandro Rodríguez, cap coordinator of the Japan Foundation in Madrid, i Pablo García Canga, film-maker, film critic and author of this beautiful text about Shimizu (which you can read in full on our website).
18.02.26 WEDNESDAY / 20.00 h Presentation of the cycle by Pablo García Canga, filmmaker and critic, i Alejandro Rodríguez, cap coordinator of the Japan Foundation in Madrid.
Musical accompaniment on the piano by Arcadi Valiente.
25.02.26 WEDNESDAY / 20.00 h
28.02.26 SATURDAY / 18.00 h
The Masseurs and a Woman
massage and woman / Anma to onna
HIROSHI SHIMIZU. The Japan. 1938. VOS SPANISH*. B/N. 65′. 16 mm.
Int. Mieko Takamine, Jishin Tokudaiji, Shinichi Himori, Shin Saburi, Takeshi Sakamoto.
Tokuichi and Fukuichi are two blind masseuses who offer their services in the thermal bath complexes located on the Izu Peninsula. In one of these complexes, Tokuichi reaches out to a woman from Tokyo who finds him attractive and enigmatic. one day, a series of robberies begin to occur at the spa…
