Tuesday, August 6, 2024 at 7:30pm
Japanese Paper Films
361 Stagg Street, Suite 407, Brooklyn
Presented by Eric Faden
In the 1930s, several Japanese companies produced films made on paper (called kami firumu, 紙フィルム) instead of celluloid. The films were often in color and some films had synchronized sound tracks on 78 rpm records. Given the short period of production, the varying paper quality, and WWII’s devastation, very few paper film prints survive. Those prints that do survive are too fragile to play on their original projectors and thus, most films haven’t been seen in over 85 years.
The Japanese Paper Film Project started at Bucknell University in 2019 and is dedicated to preserving the surviving films. The project gathered faculty and students from Film/Media Studies, East Asian Studies, Mechanical Engineering, and Computer Science to create a custom digital film scanner along with bespoke software for reanimating paper films. In 2023 and 2024, project members traveled to Japan and worked with museums, collectors, and film archives in Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, and Kobe to scan about 200 surviving films.
Our program this evening features a wide-ranging collection of digitized Japanese paper films: documentary, abridged versions of live-action Japanese and international feature films (some now lost), plus lots of anime. Animated paper films give us a peek into the origins of contemporary anime, with films that celebrate various historical and fictional samurais, rōnin, and ninjas. Several popular 1930s manga characters—Norakuro and Sutakora Sacchan, amongst others—also appear in paper films. Here, long before Miyazaki, we find fairy tales about Shinto gods and mythological creatures.
The screening, a little over an hour in length, will include both silent and sound paper films, with each piece running 1-4 minutes. For those films without a soundtrack, koto player Yoko Reikano Kimura will provide live accompaniment.
Eric Faden is a Professor of Film/Media Studies at Bucknell University.
Tickets - Pay what you can ($10 suggested donation), available at door.
Please note: seating is limited. First-come, first-served. Box office opens at 7pm. No entry 10 minutes after start of show.
Above: Collection of paper films at Kyoto’s Toy Film Museum.