“I’d like to destroy this premise that cinema is fiction.” - Shohei Imamura One of the greatest filmmakers of postwar Japanese (or, for that matter, world) cinema, Shohei Imamura spent more than four decades turning out a steady stream of astoundingly fearless, inventive, mischievous films, gleefully breaking taboos of all kinds - political, social, sexual, and aesthetic. His films - including masterpieces like THE INSECT WOMAN, THE PORNOGRAPHERS, and VENGEANCE IS MINE - are populated by a constellation of perverts, serial killers, madmen, and eccentrics, adding up to an incisive, unvarnished, but vital portrait of Japanese society. Imamura’s disregard for propriety or conventions, and his unceasing appetite for investigating and depicting Japanese society, resulted in a refusal to limit himself to fiction or documentary filmmaking, or to acknowledge a sharp distinction between the two. Throughout his career he moved fluidly from one to the other, ultimately making numerous documentaries on a host of subjects. And in some of these films, he happily blurred the boundaries between fiction and non-fiction, pioneering the hybrid form that is very much in vogue today.
For more information about films or showtimes refer to http://anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/series/40008.