The 45th Hong Kong International Film Festival will celebrate the 100th anniversary of Shochiku Cinema Studio with a retrospective programme, that will feature 10 films from Japanese maestros such as Ozu Yasujiro, Shimizu Hiroshi, Imamura Shohei, and Oshima Nagisa.

Although the company was founded in 1895 as a kabuki production company it wasn’t until 1920 that they started producing films. Shochiku Studio is one of Japan´s oldest and most successful studios. The company sought to break away from the prevailing pattern of jidai-geki and brought new ideas that offered creative freedom to filmmakers. From Japan’s first sound film, first colour film, first Oscar-winning film to the world’s longest-running film series, Shochiku transformed the cinematic landscape, leading to Japanese cinema’s rising profile globally.

The company produced movies for the best Japanese directors such as Yasujirō Ozu, Kenji Mizoguchi, Mikio Naruse, Keisuke Kinoshita, Yōji Yamada, Takashi Miike, Takeshi Kitano, Akira Kurosawa, Masaki Kobayashi and Taiwanese New Wave director Hou Hsiao-hsien.

Retrospective Film List:
1938 – The Masseurs and a Woman by Hiroshi Shimizu
1939 – The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum by Kenji Mizoguchi
1954 – Twenty-Four Eyes by Keisuke Kinoshita
1958 – Equinox Flower by Yasujiro Ozu
1962 – Love Affair at Akitsu Spa by Yoshishige Yoshida
1962 – Harakiri by Masaki Kobayashi
1977 – The Yellow Handkerchief by Yoji Yamada
1979 – Vengeance is Mine by Shohei Imamura
1986 – Gonza the Spearman by Masahiro Shinoda
1999 – Gohatto by Nagasi Oshima

Please remember that the 45th HKIFF will take a new hybrid format for the first time, featuring screenings and audience-engagement events simultaneously in-theatre and online. The festival will reveal this year’s programme, including admission details for Stanley Kwan’s Face-to-Face session, on 9 March. The public can purchase tickets online (www.hkiff.org.hk) and through all URBTIX outlets from 18 March.

To know more, please visit: https://www.hkiff.org.hk