September 15, 2004

Japanese Film Symposium To Explore Post-Bubble
Japanese Cinema Oct. 14 And 15 In The Price Center At UCSD

By Jan Jennings

The 2004 UCSD Japanese Film Symposium: Japan after the Bubble – Japanese Cinema Today and Tomorrow will be held Oct. 14 and 15 in the Price Center at the University of California, San Diego. The symposium is sponsored by the UCSD Libraries, Kyocera International, Inc., The Japan Foundation, the UCSD Japanese Studies Program, the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, and the Council on East Asian Studies. It is free and open to the public.

The seven selected films will highlight the mood and thought of Japanese society after the post economic boom, or Bubble, of the 1980s and beyond. In contrast to the optimism of the Bubble era, when Japan was enjoying an elevated global economic position, the tone of the Japanese culture and the films of the post-Bubble period, 1990-2003, took on a reflective edge.

The featured speakers will be Eric Cazdyn, associate professor at the Centre for Comparative Literature, Cinema Studies Program and Department of East Asian Studies at the University of Toronto, and Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto, associate professor of East Asian Studies at New York University.

“By envisioning eerie futures that feel like the present and uncanny presents that feel like the future, the films to be screened in this symposium present profound arguments about contemporary Japan and beyond,” says Cazdyn. “These post-contemporary interventions by different directors, all working during and after the Japanese economic Bubble, chew their way into the black-hole that is neither present nor future, but a confusion of both, forcing us to re-think where we are and where we are going.”

The symposium will include seminars led by UCSD faculty members and special guest speakers who will address the emblematic themes to be presented in a film line-up ranging from live-action to anime, black comedy to mystery, drama to horror. The films are not rated and viewer discretion is advised. Some films are not appropriate for all audiences.

For further information, visit the Japanese Film Symposium’s website at http://jfs.ucsd.edu or contact Reiney Adams at (858) 534-1413.

Media contact: Jan Jennings, (858) 822-1684