JAPANEMA / Free Japanese Cinema Screening Series
The Japan Foundation, Los Angeles provides high quality Japanese film screening every second and fourth Wednesday of month at 7:00 pm. All movies are in Japanese with English subtitles.
Venue: JFLA Auditorium, 5700 Wilshire Blvd, #100, Los Angeles, CA 90036.
Free to attend. Reservation is not required.
Street Parking is available. http://www.jflalc.org/about-us.html#parking
August 13, 2014, 7:00 pm
“Casting Blossoms to the Sky” (160 mins, 2012)
Directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi
A reporter for the local paper in Amakusa, Reiko is a child of the Nagasaki Atomic Bombing. She goes to visit her former lover, Kenichi, a victim of the Niigata Chuetsu Earthquake who resides in Nagaoka, aware of its association to the Nagaoka Fireworks.
The film is Reiko’s travelogue as she is captivated by the wonderland of surprises and delights in Nagaoka. All of the characters are actual people from history.
Nagaoka air raid narrator Lilico, whose deceased infant is reincarnated as a presently 18-year-old Hana, among other historical elements are fictionalized with a semi-documentary touch.
On March 11, 2011, Japan was struck by the Great Tohoku Earthquake. At this moment in time, Japanese cannot help but to ponder how they can exist now and in the future, as well as how have people existed up until now. This film also confronts these themes.
Director, Nobuhiko Obayashi hopes to reconsider Japan’s post-war history by gazing up at the Nagaoka Fireworks.
If the entire world’s bombs were shot to the sky as fireworks, war would disappear.
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Entrance change at the Japan Foundation building: there is considerable construction around the Japan Foundation building with the ongoing renovation of the courtyard. The main entrance of the Japan Foundation is temporarily close now. Visitors to the Japan Foundation will enter through the temporary guest entrance. map
