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| Festival Year |
Festival Section |
| 2022 |
REDISCOVERIES AND RESTORATIONS |
| Film Title |
[JAPAN I FEST] |
| Alternative Title 1 |
[Giappone in festa] |
| Alternative Title 2 |
[Japan Festivals] |
| Alternative Title 3 |
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| Country |
Japan? |
| Release Date |
circa 1914-16 |
| Production Co. |
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| Director |
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| Format |
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Speed (fps) |
| DCP |
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| Footage |
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Time |
| |
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16'31'' |
| Archive Source |
Nasjonalbiblioteket, Oslo/Mo i Rana |
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| Print Notes |
col. (da/from 35mm nitr., 276 m., imbibito/tinted)
did./titles: NOR |
| Program Notes |
The Japanese footage in the Hans Berge Collection consists of extremely rare images that are not known to survive in Japan, making them an especially exciting discovery. The film here called Japan i fest captures three ceremonies held in Kyoto in the mid-1910s, during the Taishō era (1912-1926), and is particularly notable for the many scenes of the Tayū Dōchū, a traditional, rigidly formalized procession of high-ranking courtesans known as Tayū that took place in the Shimabara district of Kyoto.
The first ceremony is a joint ritual of Buddhist and Shintō priests, while the second is the Shimabara Tayū Dōchū procession, featuring the distinctive hairstyles and costumes of these celebrated women. Thanks to the presence of the famed Tayū who participated in the ritual parade between 1914 and 1916, we are able to narrow the date of shooting to these years. The third and final sequence shows the lively portable-shrine Inari Festival, the most important annual festival at the Fushimi Inari Taisha Shintō shrine.
The first ceremony appears to be a special memorial event held that year, while the Tayū Dōchū and Inari Festivals are annual spring events held around April 22nd. Recently the BFI National Archive’s footage labelled Rice Festival in Kyoto (available on YouTube) was identified as depicting the Shimabara Tayū Dōchū from the morning of 22 April 1908, followed by the Inari Festival in the afternoon of the same day, shot by the Kyoto film company Yokota Shōkai. Similarly, the film distributed in Norway as Japan i fest first included the Tayū Dōchū and then the Inari Festival chronologically, but shows a different part of the festival from the earlier BFI material. – Mika Tomita |
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