MASAO ADACHI RETROSPECTIVE

Director, theorist, and militant, Adachi has dedicated his life to merging cinematic practice with political action, conceiving cinema not as a reflection of reality, but as an instrument to intervene in it. In his youth, he used low-budget erotic cinema as a vehicle for formal invention and provocation, and collaborated with filmmakers such as Kōji Wakamatsu and Nagisa Ōshima on films critical of capitalist modernity, revealing the ravages of power and oppression.

In 1974, he left cinema to join the Palestinian liberation struggle, remaining in the Middle East for more than two decades until his extradition to Japan in the year 2000. After a thirty-year hiatus, he returned to filmmaking with works that portray political commitment through biographical experience and respond directly and urgently to political events. This program, curated in collaboration with Go Hirasawa, traverses the different stages and genres he has navigated throughout his career, featuring radical and provocative titles such as Abortion, Female Student Guerilla, AKA Serial Killer, and Prisoner/Terrorist.

All sessions will include video presentations by Masao Adachi.