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This June, we are delighted to present a screening of The Avant-Garde Senjutsu (Zen’ei senjutsu) by the late Katsu Kanai. A “super documentary” that follows Kanai’s experimentation with computer technology, its premise is Kanai’s attempt to master “senjutsu,” an ancient art that aimed to achieve immortality.
This July, we are delighted to present the second episode in our focus on the late Katsu Kanai. In his first video work, Kanai transforms the garden of his own home, through which a small stream quietly flows, into a stage for patient observation of life.
Over this August and September, we are delighted to present the third part in our series focused on the late Katsu Kanai. This month’s work is The Stormy Times (1991), a “collection of visual poems” modeled on the forms of traditional Japanese poetry.
Screening in Partnership with Lightbox Film Center
Sep 27, 2026, 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Bok Auditorium, 800 Mifflin St, Philadelphia, PA 19148, USA
Between 11 October and 5 November 1968, teenager Nagayama Norio murdered four people in a killing spree across Japan with a shotgun stolen from a U.S. Army base. Adachi Masao, together with cultural theorist Matsuda Masao, scriptwriter Sasaki Mamoru and other collaborators, set out to trace the young man’s footsteps with a camera in hand. The result is an experimental documentary comprised purely of landscape shots, each of which shows scenery that Nagayama may or may not have seen during his upbringing and journey. Seeking an alternative to the sensationalism found in the media’s depiction of serial killers (which continues to this day), Adachi’s sparse voice-over provides only the hard facts while the increasing number of billboards in the landscapes slowly reveal the hegemony of capitalism in contemporary Japan. Launching the influential ‘landscape theory’ in Japanese film theory and practice, AKA Serial Killer is a landmark in political filmmaking. — Internatioal Film Festival Rotterdam (Masao Adachi, Japan, 1969, 86 min.) In Japanese with English subtitles
Organized by Go Hirasawa
Screening in Partnership with Lightbox Film Center
Sep 30, 2026, 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Bok Auditorium, 800 Mifflin St, Philadelphia, PA 19148, USA
In 1970s Japan, at the height of social unrest, Satoshi Kirishima was a member of the “Scorpion Cell” of the East Asian Anti-Japanese Armed Front, a new left-wing extremist group. Considered a wanted criminal, the young Kirishima went on the run, under constant fear of being caught. He became a day laborer to make ends meet, and several decades ago, he began a live-in job at a construction company in Fujisawa City, Kanagawa Prefecture, under the alias Hiroshi Uchida. While he found moments of respite through hobbies, he remained haunted by the presence of his former friends—those who struggled in prison, those who fled the country, and those who took their own lives. In 2024, at the age of 70, Kirishima found himself hovering between life and death in a hospital bed with a terminal cancer diagnosis. As his consciousness fades, memories of his time on the run with his comrades in the East Asian Anti-Japanese Armed Front come to the surface. What did he spend his life chasing and what did he hope to gain at the end of nearly fifty years of fugitivity? What was he trying to express on his death bed as he confessed, “I am Satoshi Kirishima!” Juxtaposing his own experiences, director Masao Adachi depicts Kirishima’s anguish and determination in Escape. (Masao Adachi, Japan, 2025, 114 min.) In Japanese with English subtitles
Organized by Go Hirasawa
On May 6 at 18:15 at the Barbican, in collaboration with London’s Queer East Festival, we are delighted to announce an in-person program of three works by Mari Terashima! The program includes the premier of a new English translation of Her Majesty the Queen’s Polyester Dog (1994) by Mia Parnall and Wakae Nakane.
This May, we are delighted to present a screening of three works by legend of experimental cinema Kohei Ando — the classic My Collections (1988) along with two cine-poems after Shuji Terayama, The Summer I Was Four and Astronomy of Love.
This April, we are thrilled to present (S)mothering Myself: Feelings in Renting a Mother (2024), a two-channel video work by Maari Sugawara.
This March, we are delighted to be screening a newly translated work by Mari Terashima — Fortress of Dreams (Yume no toride, 1991).
This February, we are thrilled to present two newer works from legendary animator Yuko Asano!
This January, we are delighted to present three works from Shun Ikezoe, a contemporary filmmaker based in Tokyo.
CCJが企画した展覧会「Community of Images」をを振り返るオンライン・トークが日本映像学会より開催されます。会員以外の方もご視聴いただけるので、ご興味のある方は参加希望フォームよりご連絡ください。
This December, we are delighted to present My father, burned (1994) a raw example of 1990s personal documentary from filmmaker and musician Haruka Doi, subtitled for the first time in English.
Curator and filmmaker Akihiro Suzuki will hold a virtual conversation after the screening of his film, Looking for an Angel (1999).
We are pleased to partner with Lightbox Film Center to screen Bye Bye Love in-person in Philadelphia. On November 19, curator and filmmaker Akihiro Suzuki will hold a virtual conversation after the screening of his film, Looking for an Angel (1999).
We are excited to partner with Tone Glow and Asian Arts Initiative to present the first North American run of DISTANT VOICES, the brand new feature film from Takashi Ito (b. 1956).
This November, we are delighted to present two works from contemporary filmmaker Hikaru Suzuki. God, Father and Me (2008) and Anrakuto (2011) are both experimental works that deal with unorthodox configurations of the family, and incorporate elements of documentary, retelling, and choreographed restaging.
This October, we are delighted to present the third episode in our three-part memorial screening in honour of Yōji Kuri (1928-2024), one of the founders of Japanese experimental animation. Curated by Fusako Matsu and in collaboration with the Kuri Experimental Manga Studio, our October program features Kuri’s interviews with contemporary artists.
This August, we are delighted to present the second episode in our three-part memorial screening in honour of Yōji Kuri (1928-2024), one of the founders of Japanese experimental animation. Curated by Fusako Matsu and in collaboration with the Kuri Experimental Manga Studio, our September program will focus on Kuri’s works for television.
This August, we are delighted to present the first episode in our three-part memorial screening in honour of Yōji Kuri (1928-2024), one of the founders of Japanese experimental animation. Curated by Fusako Matsu and in collaboration with the Kuri Experimental Manga Studio, our August program will focus on Kuri’s animations.
This July, we are thrilled to present a screening of two works directed by avant-garde artist Tamio Suenaga and shot by Naoya Kuroki. These documents of various performances and public demonstrations in the late 1960s are presented in partnership with Go Hirasawa and Shuhei Hosoya, as PADOCO (Postwar Art Documents Conservation Inc 戦後芸術資料保存).
This June, we are thrilled to present a screening of Kenji Aoike’s Nihon Gen’yasai Sanrizuka (1971) in partnership with Go Hirasawa and Shuhei Hosoya, as PADOCO (Postwar Arts Documents Conservation Inc 戦後芸術資料保存).
This May, we are thrilled to present four short works by contemporary filmmaker Kaori Oda.
From April 17 to May 5, we are grateful to be able to collaborate with Fusako Matsu to present a free mini-screening of the late Yōji Kuri’s iconic work Human Zoo.
This April, we are thrilled to present a rare look at the work of Kansai-based collective Voyant Cinémathèque (1983-1996) in a program curated by Hal Young.
This February and March we are delighted to present a two-part program on the filmmaker Isao Kota, in collaboration with Akihiro Suzuki and Underground Cinema Festival: the first online screening of these works for an international audience.
This February and March we are delighted to present a two-part program on the filmmaker Isao Kota, in collaboration with Akihiro Suzuki and Underground Cinema Festival: the first online screening of these works for an international audience.
Courtesy of the artist himself, this January we are thrilled to present three films by Masanori Ōe that were shown together as part of our summer 2024 Community of Images exhibition.
In collaboration with VTape, this December we are thrilled to present Kyoko Michishita’s Being Women in Japan: Liberation Within my Family, one of a pair of documentaries exploring the experiences of Japanese women in the 1970s.
Following our in-person screening in June, Magnetic Resonances: Japanese and American Artists in the 1975 ICA Video Art Exhibition, this November we are thrilled to partner with Electronic Arts Intermix to present two more works shown in the landmark exhibition of US and Japanese artists at the Philadelphia ICA.
Our October Members’ Viewing features documentation by artist and inventor Ko Nakajima of two of the major displays of global technology of the 1960s, Montreal’s Expo ‘67 and Osaka’s Expo ‘70 (also known as banpaku). His film, which splices together footage from both Osaka and Montreal, offers a rare comparative insight into the two events.
As a way to highlight the video letter exchange format that accompanied the rise of video discussed in the Community of Images exhibition, CCJ and JASGP commissioned a group of four contemporary video artists to produce today’s video letter exchange. A nod to the Video Letter (1983), a remarkable 64-minute compilation exchange of video letters that took place between video artists Shuji Terayama and Shuntaro Tanikawa, the contemporary exchange is led by Philadelphia-based artist Nadia Hironaka, who organized an exchange with US and Japan-based artists Shinpei Takeda (San Diego), Hikaru Suzuki (Tokyo) and Yu Araki (Kyoto). Before the screening, Philadelphia-based Japanese-Taiwanese artist Eiko Fan will perform her Live Wood Sculpture.
Featuring the digitization projects that were part of the Community of Images exhibition, we are pleased to share with our members selected works and moving image materials that were on view during the show. September’s Members Viewing will feature selected archival reels by Jud Yalkut that were presented in Gallery B in the exhibition.
Performance by Kuroshio featuring Jason Finkelman, Joy Yang and special guest Geoff Gersh, Aaron Pond Trio, and DuiJi!
Day 5 and final day of Dôme Do, We features morning yoga by Monarch Yoga, Self-portrait Time Lapse, paper-dome souvenir activity, sound activation by False Friends QUAD, and Termite TV Collective video projection installation!!
As part of the Community of Images exhibition, we are pleased to invite artist and urban planner Yukihisa Isobe to revisit his connection to Philadelphia and New York City of the 1960s and ‘70s, and his inflatable work, Air Dome (1970).
In the 2024 interpretation of Air Dome, Philadelphia artist Aaron Igler will lead the design and programming of a community-built dome structure titled DÔME DO.WE (a space for reset). The project was conceived as a site for collaborative skillshare, small group dialog, a lecture program, sonic performances, film screening, and more.
