Past Event: Kinema Club XI

Dates: Friday, November 25, 2011 to Sunday, November 27, 2011

Venue: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of Vienna

City and State: Vienna, Austria

Organizers: Roland Domenig

Japanese Cinema Spaces and Film Environments:

We are pleased to announce the 11th Kinema Club to take place in Vienna from November 25 (Fr.) to 27 (Su.). The conference in Vienna is dedicated to the topic “Japanese cinema spaces and film environments” and will focus on the exhibition side of film in Japan. The conference will be hosted by the Institute of East Asian Studies at the AAKH-Campus of Vienna University, a stone’s throw away from Vienna’s city center.
 
In recent years a significant strand of research in cinema studies has been devoted to understanding cinema experience in terms of the logic of exhibition practices. Yet, many film historians take their subject still very literally: they primarily write histories of films, but not histories of cinemas. This is particularly true in the case of Japan. Significant works have been published in the past decades that have helped expand the knowledge about Japanese film history outside of Japan. We know a lot about certain filmmakers and their films, about specific genres, the studios and the movies of a specific period, yet very little is known about where and how these films have been shown and who was watching them. We know little about the cinemas in Japan. The aim of this conference is to take a closer look at the movie theatres in Japan and to shed light on the Japanese exhibition market.
 
The conference will be organized by the Institute of East Asian Studies of Vienna University and the Austrian Japan-Society for Science and Arts in cooperation with Kinema Club. Kinema Club is an informal community of scholars, artists, and fans interested in Japanese moving image media established in the early 1990s. One of its most important activities are the workshops and conferences that have been held since 1999. So far ten Kinema Club conferences have been organized: Michigan (1999), Hawai’i (2003), NYU (2004), McGill (2004), Tokyo (2005), NYU (2005), Yale (2006), Frankfurt (2007), Harvard (2009) and Hawai’i (2010). KC-XI will be the second Kinema Club conference held in Europe.
 
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• histories of specific movie theatres
• biographies of film exhibitors
• regulations of exhibition spaces
• labor issues of movie theatre employees
• Cine-Club activities
• alternative ways of film exhibition
• film screenings at schools
• mobile projection units
• live performances at cinemas
• sound-scape in cinemas
• cinemas and urban development
• movie theatre architecture
• cinema audiences and movie-going experiences
• open air screenings/yagai joei
• multiplexes, mini-theatres, meigaza, etc.
• film festival exhibitions
• jisshu joei
• advertising of movie theatres, the cinemas of Japanese migrants

We also invite proposals for discussants (a role that may help some acquire travel funds to attend).
 
Conference Site: The conference will take place at the Institute of East Asian Studies at the AAKH-Campus of Vienna University.
 
Registration Fee: € 30 for Professors and € 15 for students and hijokin.  
 
Side Program: besides the presentation of the papers an excursion to a couple of cinemas in Vienna is planned, among them one of the world’s oldest cinemas (BSL) built in 1905.
 
Housing: Vienna offers a wide variety of hotels in all price-ranges. A list of hotels in the vicinity of the conference site or in convenient reach by public transportation will be announced soon.
 
A Note on Language: The conference language will be English, but to draw attendees from Japan we also welcome papers proposed and delivered in Japanese.
 
Deadline for abstracts is August 31st, 2011

• Please send proposals for presentations to: roland.domenig@univie.ac.at
• Papers and presenters will be announced by September 15th, 2011.
• Please send inquiries to: roland.domenig@univie.ac.at

Schedule:

• XI. KINEMA CLUB CONFERENCE
  “Japanese cinema spaces and film environments”
• University of Vienna, Institute of East Asian Studies, 25.–27.11.2011

Program:

• Friday, 25.11.2011:
  • 10:30–12:00 Kick-off: visit to the Third Man Museum
  • 14:30–15:00  Registration
  • 15:00–16:00 Invited speaker TOMIOKA Kunihiko (Studyo Planet 1/Ôsaka) Studyo Planet 1 – achievements, tasks and challenges
  • 16:00–17:00 Invited speaker KIMATA Kimihiko (Tôkyô) The movie theatres of Nagoya – a personal recollection
  • 17:15–18:15 Film screening Momoiro jingi – Anego no shiroi hada (Araki Tarô, 2006) In commemoration of the Shizuoka Odeon-za
  • 19:00                  Diner Reception at Heuriger Steinschaden
• Saturday, 26.11.2011
  • 10:00–12:00 Excursion to the world’s oldest operating cinema, Breitenseer Lichtspiele (founded in 1905) Film screening. The Tingler (dir. William Castle, 1959)
  • 14:00–15:00 Keynote speech KOMATSU Hiroshi (Waseda University)
    Film and its mode of presentation before 1923 in Japan – Film theater’s aesthetico-cultural characteristics
  • Panel 1:   
    • 15:00–15:45 TANIGUCHI Norie (Waseda University) Groups of Moviegoers in early Japanese movie theatres
    • 15:45–16:30 HATORI Takafusa (Waseda University) Watching Kutsukake Tokijirô on its Release: A Case Study on the Ballad Cinema
    • 16:30–17:00 Coffee break
       
  • Panel 2:
    • 17:00–17:45 Michael RAINE (Berkeley University) “No Interpreter, Full Volume”: the cinema soundscape in the late benshi period
    • 17:45–18:30 Johann NORDSTROM (Waseda University) The Screening Practices of Early Japanese Sound Cinema
       
  • Sunday, 27.11.2011
    • Panel 3
      • 10:00–10:45 Harald SALOMON (Humboldt University Berlin) The Young Nation at the Movies – Cinema for Children in Early Shôwa Japan
      • 10:45–11:30 YUKAWA Shirô (University of Bonn) Film Environments in Mandschukuo (1932–1945)
      • 11:30–12:15 Roland DOMENIG (University of Vienna) Film/Strip – Film screenings at strip venues in Tôkyô in the early 1950s
      • 12:15–13:45 Lunch break
         
    • Panel 4
      • 13:45–14:30 Julian ROSS (Leeds University) The Body or The Machine: Spaces for Intermedia and Expanded Cinema in 1960s Japan
      • 14:30–15:15 MATSUI Shigeru (Tokyo University of the Arts) Ginza’s Television Environment
      • 15:15–16:00 HIRASAWA Gô (Meiji GakuinUniversity) The Sôgetsu Art Center as experimental screening space
      • 16:00–16:30 Coffee break
         
    • Panel 5
      • 16:30–17:15 TSUNODA Takuya (Yale University)
        Toward Experiential Awareness of A Human: Hani Susumu on Subjectivity and Cinematic Experience
      • 17:15–18:00 TSUNEISHI Fumiko (Austrian Filmarchive) Preserve and Show – The National Film Center as Exhibitor
      • 18:00–18:45 ABÉ Mark NORNES (University of Michigan) Yamagata—Asia—Europe: International Film Festival Short-Circuit
      • 18:45–Discussion and get-together

Conference site: Institute of East Asian Studies, Japanese Studies Department, University of Vienna, AAKH Campus, Hof 2, Entrance 2.4, Spitalgasse 2, 1090 Wien, Austria
Organized by: Roland Domenig; Austrian Japan-Society for Arts and Sciences/Institute of East Asian Studies, University of Vienna
Supported by:Faculty of Philological and Cultural Studies, University of Vienna/Japan Foundation