Yearly Calendar 2016
National Film Center Calendar (April, 2016 – January, 2017)
*Due to electrical work and others, NFC will be closed from the end of January to the end of March, 2017.
Cinema 1
April 5– June 12, 2016
Commemorating the centenary of Chuji Kinoshita (b. 1916), film score composer who made a contribution to the golden age of post World War II Japanese cinema and wrote scores for more than 400 films, this program will survey the master’s wide variety of footsteps in narrative, documentary and animation films, including his first film, Waga koi seshi otome (1946).
June 18–July 10, 2016
Co-organizers: The Delegation of the European Union to Japan and the embassies and the cultural institutes of the EU Member States in Japan
EU Film Days is a series showcasing films from the member states of the European Union (EU). Now in its 14th edition (9th to be held at NFC), EU Film Days brings together a wide variety of films from about 25 member states, exhibiting the wide range of filmmaking talent in Europe and introducing the diversity of European society and culture to audiences in Japan.
July 12–September 4, 2016
Commemorating the centenary of Tai Kato (1916–1985), master jidaigeki film director who was renowned for his original visual style, this program will be a large retrospective of his films from the early period to the closing years.
September 10–23, 2016
Co-organizers: PFF Partners and Unijapan
The 38th Pia Film Festival (7th to be held at NFC) will hold the “PFF Award Competition,” the biggest competition for non-theatrical films in the world, special programs and screenings of valuable films for movie fans and the younger generation who aspire to become movie directors.
October 11–16, 2016
Co-organizer: Swedish Film Institute
This is an established program that shows quality silent films with the live piano accompaniment or the oral explanation of the benshi film narrator. This year’s lineup will showcase a number of film classics collected and restored by the Swedish Film Institute.
October 25–November 6, 2016
Co-organizers: Tokyo International Film Festival, Motion Picture Association (MPA) and Japanese International Motion Picture Copyright Association [to be confirmed]
The United States of America, one of the greatest film producer in the world, is also one of the greatest film preserver which actively undertakes longer-term preservation of films as well as restoration of films. This program will showcase American classic movies dating from the silent era up to the 1980s, including the restored My Darling Clementine (1946), from the collection of UCLA Film & Television Archive, the world’s largest university-based media archive.
November 10–23, 2016
This is a program that showcases the choicest foreign films with Japanese subtitles from the NFC collection. A number of valuable films will be shown on the big screen of NFC.
November 29–December 25, 2016
Co-organizers: DEFA Foundation, Deutsche Kinemathek
Commemorating the 70th anniversary of the foundation of DEFA (1946–1992), a representative film company of former East Germany, this program will showcase its prominent narrative films and documentary films selected from more than 4,000 films it produced. For Japanese audiences, this will be the first retrospective of the company.
January 10–22, 2017
This is the 5th installment of the series that showcases the prominent Japanese directors’ films of their own selection. The lineup mainly consists of films of the 1980s and after. This program will quest for the origins of contemporary Japanese cinema.
Cinema 2
May 6 – May 22, 2016
*Screenings on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays
This program will show the 11 films most popular in our 2015 programs.
August 9–28, 2016
As the 2nd installment of “Documentary Filmmaker” series, following “Noriaki Tsuchimoto: A Documentary Filmmaker” in 2009, this program will screen the prominent works as well as the recent ones of Sumiko Haneda, who will celebrate her 90th birthday this year.
KYOBASHI-ZA
Under the title of “KYOBASHI - ZA”, Cinema 2 presents films from the NFC collection several times a year. For the program schedule, please see our website and fliers.
Temporary Exhibition
April 12–July 10, 2016
While many movie theaters are changing or disappearing due to the spread of digital cinema, Satoshi Chuma, the projectionist who published a photography book Eigakan (Movie Theaters), has been taking photos of movie theaters throughout Japan. This exhibition will present his works along with the prewar photos owned by NFC, giving the full picture of this rich cultural institution of the 20th century.
July 26–October 30, 2016
Publishing company Kadokawa Shoten shocked Japanese film industry when it moved in on movie production and released The Inugamis in 1976. Promoted with their original books and theme songs, the films it produced gained great popularity and new movie fans. This exhibition will survey the ambitious filmmaking of this company.
November 15, 2016–January 29, 2017
Co-organizer: The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto
After the division, East Germany and West Germany went their separate way in movie poster design. This exhibition will show the movie posters of two Germany on the occasion of the retrospective of DEFA.
Permanent Exhibition
Japanese cinema has already had a history of over one century with two golden ages. Targeted towards diverse generations of viewers ranging from elementary school students to adults, this exhibition will survey the history through posters, still photographs, devices and equipments for filmmaking, and the personal items that belonged to noted film personalities, among others from the NFC Collection.
*Captions in both Japanese and English
