20 April 2010: Observer/Observed – The Films of Takahiko Iimura

This programme is a survey of the work of Japan's most influential experimental filmmaker, Takahiko Iimura, from his earliest 1960s experiments and conceptual videos to his later videos on semiology and identity.

"Taka Iimura has been making films since the early 1960s. His work has gone through a series of relatively clear, consistent developments: from 1962 to 1968, Iimura was largely involved with surreal imagery, with eroticism, and with social criticism; from 1968 through 1971, he continued to use photographic imagery, but worked with it in increasingly formal ways; from 1972 until 1978, he devoted himself very largely to a series of minimalist explorations of time and space. During the years since, Iimura has been more fully involved with video than with film." -- Scott MacDonald

"Although Taka was and continues to be an active part of the New York avant-garde scene, he always remained an enigmatic, mysterious presence, pursuing his own unique route through the very center of the avant-garde cinema. While the intensity and the fire of the American avant-garde film movement inspired him and attracted him, his Japanese origins contributed decisively to his uncompromising explorations of cinema's minimalist and conceptualist possibilities. He has explored this direction of cinema in greater depth than anyone else." -- Jonas Mekas

Programme starts at 8pm