Summer in Japan

Programmed by Jesse Trussell

Wind rustling grass in the countryside, a sweltering heat wave ravaging sprawling Tokyo, waves crashing on the shore in Okinawa. Japanese cinema has always had a special affinity for the floating time, exuberant joy, and quiet melancholy of the summer. This series gathers together Japanese summer films spanning seven decades and many of the greatest filmmakers in the nation’s history. From postwar masters (Kurosawa, Ozu) to New Wave iconoclasts (Oshima), ‘80s upstarts (Somai, Obayashi, and Morita), ‘90s icons (Kitano, Iwai, and Aoyama), and contemporary auteurs (Hosoda and Matsumoto), behold the beauty and sadness of the summer.