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A “Toy Film” History of Shōwa: The Second Sino-Japanese War, 1931-1945

  • The Katharina Otto-Bernstein Screening Room (map)

Motion picture films were greeted at their inception as a new form of “history writing.” Over a century later, Japanese film archivists rescued, restored, and edited together rare footage from colonial-era home movies shot in Japan-occupied Manchuria, animation shorts related to the Russo-Japanese and 2nd Sino-Japanese wars, scenes of the Taishō Emperor's funeral, and Hirohito's coronation. 

Join us for a history from found footage using small gauge (9.5mm) “toy film” (omocha eiga).

Film Presented by Yoneo Ota, Professor of Art, Curator, Toy Film Museum, Kyoto, Japan
Piano accompaniment by Makia Matsumura
Intertitle translation & co-curator: Joanne Bernardi, Professor of East Asian Studies, University of Rochester  

Co-sponsored by the Center for Comparative Media; the C.V. Starr East Asian Library; Columbia University Seminars on Sites of Cinema; the Department of History; the Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture; Film and Media Studies, School of the Arts; the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP); and the Weatherhead East Asian Institute.


yoneo ota

Yoneo Ota

Related Event

University Seminars, Sites of Cinema: “New Paths to Preserving Japanese Cinema”

Friday, September 15, 2023
7:30 pm
Dodge Hall, Room 511

Featuring
Yoneo Ota, Professor of Art, Curator, Toy Film Museum, Kyoto, Japan
Joanne Bernardi, Professor of East Asian Studies, University of Rochester 

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