Naked Island: Benicio Del Toro Presents the Work of Legendary Japanese Filmmaker Kaneto Shindo
Visions and Voices
Summary:
Kaneto Shindo has been a pioneer of independent filmmaking in Japan for over 80 years. Join us in a unique opportunity to celebrate Kaneto Shindo with a rare 35mm screening of Naked Island, followed by a Q&A with Benicio Del Toro and Jiro Shindo, the director’s son.
Description:
Join us in a unique opportunity to celebrate legendary Japanese filmmaker Kaneto Shindo with a rare 35mm screening of Naked Island, followed by a Q&A with Benicio Del Toro and Jiro Shindo, the director’s son.
Kaneto Shindo has been a pioneer of independent filmmaking in Japan for over 80 years, engaging in radical experiments with cinematic forms that seem innovative even today. Shindo’s Naked Island, described by Time Out as “perhaps the ultimate poetic-ruralism masterpiece by someone not named Malick,” is a nearly dialogue-free film that follows the struggles of a young family living as farmers on an island that lacks a natural water source. The resulting cinematic poem has become a landmark of Japanese cinema that, according to the New York Times, manifests “the eloquence with which a movie can be made to convey, without words, the qualities and endurance locked in the lives of human beings.” Despite having won numerous international awards, Shindo’s work has only recently been reintroduced to non-Japanese audiences, largely through the championing of Academy Award–winning actor Benicio Del Toro, who has called Shindo “one of the great filmmakers that the world has produced.”
Organized by Sunyoung Lee (Kaya Press), Akira Lippit (Cinematic Arts) and Stanley Rosen (Political Science). Co-sponsored by American Studies and Ethnicity (Asian American Studies), the Center for Japanese Religions and Culture, East Asian Languages and Culture, the East Asian Studies Center and the USC School of Cinematic Arts (Critical Studies and Outside the Box [Office]).