NW Film Forum & Grand Illusion Team Up For Seijun Suzuki Retrospective

Co-presented with the Grand Illusion Cinema and the Japan Foundation 

Introduction by City Arts Writer/ Film Historian Tony Kay for Tokyo Drifter, Carmen of Kawachi, Branded to Kill, Gate of Flesh and Fighting Elegy

Japanese film director Seijun Suzuki began his career making increasingly outrageous B movies for Nikkatsu Studios in the 1950s and 1960s (he was eventually fired for his stylistic excesses). More than ten years later, he reinvented himself as an independent filmmaker with a uniquely eccentric vision. He remains a cult figure outside of Japan and his influence can be seen in the work of directors as diverse as Jim Jarmusch, Baz Luhrmann, and Quentin Tarantino. This national tour of Suzuki’s work accompanies Smithsonian curator Tom Vick’s book, Time and Place Are Nonsense: The Films of Seijun Suzuki, which is the first book-length study of his work in English. The touring retrospective is co-organized with the Japan Foundation and presented in conjunction with the Smithsonian Institution’s Sackler Gallery exhibition Sōtatsu: Making Waves. Northwest Film Forum and the Grand Illusion Cinema are proud to be partnering on bringing these films to Seattle, many of them on 35mm film prints.

SCREENINGS AT THE NORTHWEST FILM FORUM

April 13: Youth of the Beast

April 27: Tattooed Life

May 04: Tokyo Drifter

May 04: Carmen From Kawachi

May 11: Branded To Kill

SCREENINGS AT THE GRAND ILLUSION CINEMA