Prisoner of Love is the final novel by Jean Genet, written with “the fine white heat of lifelong rage,” it recounts the two-year period he spent living in Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan. Produced when many of the men he had known and loved had been killed, and he himself was dying, the text is “a reaffirmation of the author’s commitment not only to the Palestinian revolution but to rebellion itself.”

In 2008, Prisoner of Love was adapted for stage by seminal Japanese filmmaker Takashi Ito – known best for his extraordinary in-camera animation techniques and 16mm alchemy – who interprets Genet’s work as a video installation and a dance performance. Ito recruited his long-term musical collaborator Takashi Inagaki to compose the soundtracks for the work, which are being published for the first time through purge.xxx.

Close-Up is delighted to present a multimedia event marking the release of this record, with Stanley Schtinter present to introduce Genet’s novel, as well as a selection of films by Takashi Ito, and never-before-seen fragments documenting Prisoner of Love’s Japanese performance.

Concluding the evening, guests will have an opportunity to listen to Inagaki’s soundtrack.

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Copies of Inagaki’s works and other records from purge.xxx – including work by Trevor Mathison (Black Audio Film Collective), Dirk Schaefer (Matthias Müller / Peter Tscherkassky) and Jocelyn Pook (John Smith) – will be available. All label proceeds will be donated to MAP.