After months of feverish discussion with Benjamin, we’re thrilled to kick off this monthly carte blanche series with a special one-night Friday the 13th event honoring the enigmatic Twitch streamer and bricolage-r of the audiovisual unknown who calls himself FORGOTTEN_VCR.
Then, later in October, join Benjamin for two films by Soda Kazuhiro, building off of our 2019 retrospective: his breakout 2008 documentary MENTAL, followed by the little-screened sequel documentary ZERO. Both shows will be followed by a remote Q+A with Soda and his producer Kashiwagi Kiyoko, guided if not moderated by Benjamin Pequet.
AN EVENING WITH FORGOTTEN_VCR
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13 – 7:30PM and 10PM followed by remote Q+A with FORGOTTEN_VCR
ONE NIGHT ONLY!
Ninja cinema, fossilized technology, toy commercials, moment of impossible promise from the dawn of the computer age: it’s all here. For ONE NIGHT ONLY, join Benjamin on a brain-breaking odyssey into this misunderstood and much-neglected analog cosmos that is FORGOTTEN_VCR.
MENTAL
(精神)
dir. Soda Kazuhiro, production associate Kashiwagi Kiyoko . 2008.
135 mins. Japan.
In Japanese with English subtitles.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 28 – 5 PM with Soda Kazuhiro and Kashiwagi Kiyoko for remote Q+A
After being diagnosed with “burnout” at the end of too many grueling work weeks, Soda became fascinated by alternative means of mental health treatment. MENTAL is a portrait of an outpatient psychiatric clinic called Chorale Okayama, founded by one Dr. Masatomo Yamamoto – the protagonist of the film, an elderly doctor working for essentially nothing. Chorale Okayama serves people with incurable mental disorders, who Yamamoto essentially believes can be nevertheless helped by a sympathetic community of listeners.Soda structured MENTAL so that viewers would will feel like they’re stepping into the clinic just like he did for the first time, unaware of what he would find. It’s not the easiest film in his body of work to watch but is nevertheless an act of courage, looking beyond what the filmmaker calls “the invisible curtain” that separates the well from the unwell (a questionable dichotomy to begin with.) As Soda speaks with Yamamoto’s patients about their lives, struggles, hallucinations and dreams, MENTAL becomes an extraordinary cross-examination of taboo in Japan, to say nothing of the accumulated costs of trauma and, finally, the documentary form’s inherent potential for compassion.
ZERO
(精神0)
128 mins. Japan.
In Japanese with English subtitles.
ONE NIGHT ONLY!
“Shooting Dr. Yamamoto, a self-described workaholic, I immediately felt that for him, mental healthcare was his life. His work defined who Masatomo Yamamoto was. It gave him a reason to live. And he was about to let that go. When Yamamoto becomes just a human being without a title or role as a doctor, how will he live? Being a workaholic myself, I was really curious. The path he is about to take is the one I will need to take one day. It is actually a universal path that many people must experience some day.
While I was shooting Yamamoto with such a point of view, another protagonist emerged: Yoshiko Yamamoto, his wife. The film turned out to be about the couple rather than the doctor. As a result, I unexpectedly made a film about ‘pure love.'” – Kazuhiro Soda