Kohei Ando

Born in 1944, Kohei Ando received bachelor’s degree from Waseda University then went on to study at L'Ecole Centrale in Paris. Ando acted in Shuji Terayama's theatrical production "Les Enfants du Paradis" and traveled with Terayama in Europe. Using a 16mm camera he purchased with Terayama, Ando produced first film, Oh! My Mother (1968). Ando is the recipient of awards at numerous international film festivals, including Oberhausen International Short Film Festival (Oh My Mother, 1969) and Thonon-les-Bains International Independent Film Festival (The Sons, 1975). His works are included in collections at major art museums and film libraries in London, Paris, New York, Los Angeles and Tokyo. His high-definition video On the Far Side of Twilight, which he wrote and directed, was transferred to film and received the Silver Maile Award at the Hawaii International Film Festival and the Astrolabium Award of the International Electronic Cinema Festival in 1994. Thematic subjects of space, time, memory, and reincarnation appear repeatedly in his works. Ando is also a leader of HDTV production at Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS, a broadcasting company). Retrospectives of his works have recently been presented at Oberhausen (1994), Paris (1995) and Tampere International Film Festival (1996). After Twilight received the Astrolabium Award (1996), and Ando himself received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the International Electronic Cinema Festival (Montreux) in 1997 and the Hivision Award in 1998. Whispers of Vermeer also received the Astrolabium Award of the International Electronic Cinema Festival and the Hivision Award in 1998, and was invited from festivals in the U.S. including the Margaret Mead Film Festival in NY in 1999.

He was invited from numerous international film festivals as a jury or a lecturer including International Wildlife Film Festival in the U.S. (1999), Festival International de Audio Visual in France (2000), and Guanajuato International Film Festival in Mexico (2016). Ando was selected as a Special Exchange Artist from the Agency for Cultural Affairs of Japan in 2001. In both 2001 and 2006, his retrospective exhibition was held in Paris.

He taught at Waseda University from 2003 to 2014, and now is its professor emeritus. He is the Programing Adviser of the Tokyo International Film Festival.

Oh My Mother, 1969, 16mm, 10 min

Oberhausen International Short Film Festival; Collected by Getty Museum, National Film Archive of Japan, and others.
Writes Ando, “Oh! My Mother was the first work I made using a newly bought 16mm camera I had purchased with the writer Shuji Terayama in Paris. This piece was selected for the Oberhausen International Film Festival. In 1969, there were, of course, no video cameras like ones we see now, and color TVs were only found at broadcast television studios. I had just been employed at the TBS (Tokyo Broadcasting System), and I often snuck into the studios after hours to experiment with the equipment. Oh! My Mother was made using the feedback effect, which is produced by infinitely expanding the image by looping the video.” (From Vital Signals: Early Japanese Video Art, Electronic Arts Intermix)

Les Fils/The Sons, 1973, 16mm, 25 min

Crossing beyond the theatrical setup or Hollywood clichés, Les Fils/The Sons tells its story through the wonderful camera that constantly searches its periphery and touches the world through the eyes. The exposure that suddenly changes and jumps to a white screen, ornamental handwriting, the blue of an ink bottle and the sea, an overexposed red boat floating on the pale blue ocean: these, together with queer experience, all melt together into fragrances which waft across the screen. As Derek Jarman tried to make a film only with Klein Blue [Blue, 1993], Kohei Ando gazes at the grainy violet blue of the screen, which veils transience and tranquil sensibilities.
(From: Norio Nishijima, Umaretsutsu aru eizo jikken eiga no sakka tachi (1991, Bunsaisha))

Grand Prix at The Thonon Les Bains International Independent Film Festival
Collected by National Film Archive of Japan

My Friends, In My Address Book, 1974, 16mm, 3 min

A film made for the 100 Feet Festival, the work is a filmic address book featuring Ando’s friends. For each 1 foot of film, a friend appears holding a postcard with their address written. Collected by the National film Archive of Japan

Star Waars!, 1978, 16mm, 1:24 min

A charming parody of Star Wars, familiar faces (to Japanese) of Japanese stars growl at the camera like Leo the Lion.

La Valse/Waltz, 1976, 16mm, 17 min

An impression of the grace of life, eternity, dream, and memory, the work is like a filmic expression of Proust’s allure of the strange beauty of dreams, while at the same time hints at Michael Snow’s Wavelength. The film centers around an elderly woman’s tea time, and her dance to Strauss’ waltz. After multiple sequences back and forth between sipping tea and dancing, she finds herself in an evening gown she once wore. When the music stops, the camera zooms in on a photograph of her, then changes exposure and pans to the ocean outside of the window. The ebb and flow of the ocean also keeps time of the waltz.

Description based on text by Norio Nishijima, Umaretsutsu aru eizo jikken eiga no sakka tachi (1991, Bunsaisha). Collection of National film Archive of Japan.

Like a Train Passing, 1978, 16mm, 3 min　

Collected by Getty Museum, National Film Archive of Japan, among others

Like a Train Passing 2, 1979, 16mm, 7 min

Collected by Getty Museum, National Film Archive of Japan, among others

My Collections, 1988, 16mm, 10 min　

My Collections confirms that cataloging and anthologizing are important facets of Ando’s art. Ando is not a taxonomist, but rather, the collections add up to an oblique self-portrait: the first-person answer to Michael Powell’s third-person An Airman’s Letter to his Mother (a five-minutes film made in 1941). Both are films in which the objects a man has gathered in his room serve to define his character, his sensibility and his aspirations. Michael Powell explored a missing airman’s room with an objective eye. Ando explores his own room and recognizes that his treasured possessions amount to an image of himself. Ownership transforms objects: it invests them with memories and brings them into fortuitous conjunctions that may be revealing.

Description based on text by Tony Rains (film critic). Collected by Getty Museum, National Film Archive of Japan, among others.

On the Far Side of Twilight, 1994, HDTV & 35mm, 39 min

As one of Ando’s magical realist works of the 1990s, a young boy expresses his fervent admiration for sunsets to the point where he uses a pair of scissors to cut out a piece of the sky. From there, he finds himself inside of a box-shaped sunset that transports him across time and space as reflected in the changing of the seasons and the boy’s sudden growth from youth to old age. In tandem with these events, the boy’s memories materialize and take on a life of their own. Winner of the Silver Maile Award at the Hawaii International Film Festival and the Astrolabium Award of the International Electronic Cinema Festival. Collected by National Film Archive of Japan. (Liam Otero)

After Twilight, 1995, HDTV & 35mm, 30 min

A man professes his love for an enigmatic woman who resides in a surrealistic, dream-like world that contains fragments of his childhood memories. Stylistically, the narrative of this short film is structured entirely between photographic still images and the bold airbrush paintings of Contemporary Japanese artist Kozo Mio (1924 - 2000) with accompanying background music by ambient performance duo Uman.
Winner of the Astrolabium Award of the International Electronic Cinema Festival. Collected by National Film Archive of Japan. (Liam Otero)

A Story About Kusanojo, 1997, HDTV & 35mm, 20 min

In a small village, 14-year old Futaro contemplates how he could have been raised without a father. Over the months, he detects unusual behavior in his mother as she seems to be interacting with an unknown individual, possibly one of her actor friends. The arrival of a samurai ghost in the family garden who bears a striking resemblance to the young Futaro reveals a surprising truth about his family background. Collected by National Film Archive of Japan. (Liam Otero)

Whispers of Vermeer, 1998, HDTV & 35mm, 50 min

An elderly Japanese man witnesses the subjects from the paintings of Dutch Baroque artist Johannes Vermeer (1632 - 1675) come to life. Following their real-life manifestation, the paintings formulate a mysterious romance story set in late-Meiji Japan in which a young woman’s relatives die under unusual circumstances concurrent with the arrival of a monk and a suspicious maid. Winner of the Grand Prix of the International Electronic Cinema Festival and The Hivision Award. Collected by National Film Archive of Japan. (Liam Otero)

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (2003)

A documentary film on the art of French painter, printmaker, caricaturist, illustrator, and draftsman Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864 - 1901). The film features ample footage of specific locations that Toulouse-Lautrec visited and later pictorialized along with an expansive selection of his works that immortalized everyday life in La Belle Époque Paris. (Liam Otero)

Henri Rousseau (2003)

A documentary film on the life of French Post-Impressionist Henri Rousseau (1844 - 1910) as told through animated recreations of his signature primitivist paintings, high-definition artwork reproductions, dramatic interpretations, and focused shots of key locations from the artist’s life and career. (Liam Otero)