During the late 70's Japanese cinema went through an atypical and surprising phase, when many very young filmmakers took advantage of 8mm film's possibilities to self produce bizarre free and crazy films, both provocative and outrageous. Charged with rage and fury, the screaming jishu eiga genre was born, well set on shaking up Japanese cinema, at a stand still at the time. Among the directors of this punk new wave who lamified their elders, feature some now well known figures celebrated in our festival, such as Shinya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo, Tokyo Fist), Sogo Ishii (Freeze, Burst City), Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Cure), and the maddest of them all, master Sono Sion (Tokyo Tribe, Suicide club). Others, known only to a few aficionados, also hoped their creativity would reach a wider audience. At the time, the movement lived on thanks to the PIA Festival focused on emerging talents using 8mm.
Restored today in 2K from the original positives, the 11 films of this anthology deliver a global view of a little known area on our map of japanese cinema, but what an essential one!
