Japan

Japanese video artist Toshio Matsumoto became best known for Funeral Parade of Roses. The experimental short film Atman, on the other hand, is a visual tour-de-force: In the center of a circle, Matsumoto places a figure wearing a Hannya mask. In the circle, he places the camera in 480 different positions. The film seems full of zooms and pans, but they are really the result of a clever edit.

Nishikawa’s analogue films often focus on the process of filmmaking itself. Light, Noise, Smoke and Light, Noise, Smoke shows a deceptively complex interplay between fireworks shots taken during a summer festival and the sonic imprints the same images leave on the optical soundtrack.

One of the great masters of postwar Japanese cinema, rebellious filmmaker Nagasi Oshima was also one of his generation’s most politically engaged artists. Diary of Yunbogi is an ethereal montage of still images with dark, somber undertones based on photographs Oshima took during a study trip to South Korea in 1965.

Children dance to music under the watchful eye of their teacher. A young girl witnesses the scene and disrupts their ritual.