Ricepaper magazine are teaming up with our friends from The Powell Street Festival to sponsor a film, “The Primitchibu World” at the upcoming “Kibatsu Cinema”. The event is a celebration of the odd and the eccentric in Japanese pop culture and contemporary Japanese film and it is a lead-up event to the 37th Annual Powell Street Festival, a celebration of Japanese Canadian arts, culture and heritage.
Kibatsu is a Japanese word denoting a person or thing that is, by ordinary standards, unusual or unconventional. This year, Chris MaGee (the founder of J-Film Pow-Wow blog and the co-founder and co-curator of Shinsedai Cinema Festival Toronto) curates a series of quirky, smart, and stylish films that delve into and explore the world of anime, indie rock groupies, outsider art, iconoclast sound artists, and unconventional love stories.
Film: The Primitchibu World
Year: 2009
Running time: 70 minutes
Director: Kasumi Hiraoka & Takeshi Shirai
Producers: Kasumi Hiraoka, Takeshi Shirai & Keiko Kusakabe
Writer: Kasumi Hiraoka & Takeshi Shirai
Cinematographer: Kasumi Hiraoka
Editor: Kasumi Hiraoka
Music: Takeshi Shirai
Starring: Evaryu, Hanaka Kiki, Kanji Masuyama
Film Synopsis: “Primitchibu” translates roughly as “primitive underbelly”; and in this bold, colourful and celebratory experimental film director Kasumi Hiraoka and Takeshi Shirai takes us on a journey into the bohemian underground of present day Japan. A young woman who sells flowers in a shopping arcade meets a young man who is obsessed with the idea that a war is imminent. Kasumi Hiraoka was born in Osaka in 1981 and studied literature at Doshisha University. Along with her filmmaking she is a live performer and pole dancer. Her husband Takeshi Shirai is a musician and the architect behind The Primitchibu Project, multi-media screenings of the film accompanied by live performances.
Film Trailer:
Kibatsu Cinema will be held on Jude 6, 13, 20 & 27, 2013, at The Cinematheque, 1131 Howe Street, Vancouver. Festival weekend is August 3-4, 2013, with other events beginning in May. For more details and full schedule info please visit www.powellstreetfestival.com.