Latest news with #TokyoPhotographicArtMuseum
Yomiuri Shimbun
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Kumamoto's Five-month-long Hit Now Playing in Tokyo; 'Boneless Lantern' Features Historical Hot Spring Town
©KUMAMOTO YAMAGA EIGA project A still from the film 'Honenashi Toro' ('Boneless Lantern') The film 'Honenashi Toro' ('Boneless Lantern'), which recorded an exceptional five-month-long run at a small theater in Kumamoto last year, is now playing in Tokyo through June 22. Nadeshiko Koba directed the film and lives in Yamaga, Kumamoto Prefecture. She independently filmed it along with her husband Tamio, who is the movie's producer. The plot revolves around a man who has lost his wife. Unable to overcome his grief, he wanders around the city with the box that holds her cremated bones. He gradually recovers thanks to funny and mysterious meetings with people. Yamaga is a city full of hot springs that once thrived as a post station town along a major road in the Edo period (1603-1867). During that time, Daimyo feudal lords were required to stay in the then capital Edo every other year. Some of them often stayed at Yamaga while traveling to Edo. Various scenes of the film closely depict the city's culture and atmosphere. The most symbolic is the Yamaga lantern, a local traditional craft that the film takes its name from. The lantern is made using only traditional Japanese washi paper and glue. Its soft light in some ways symbolizes the man's recovery. A summer festival shown in the film in which young women dance with these golden lanterns on their heads leaves an impression, along with the cheerful greetings of children. ©KUMAMOTO YAMAGA EIGA project A still from the film 'Honenashi Toro' ('Boneless Lantern') Koba established her career as a screenwriter. She moved to Yamaga with Tamio in 2021. 'Boneless Lantern' is Koba's first feature as a director. She won awards at film festivals, such as Best First Time Filmmaker at the Toronto International Women Film Festival. The movie played in cities including Kumamoto, Kobe and Nagoya before coming to Tokyo. Filmgoers can see it at the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum in Tokyo. It plays with Japanese or English subtitles once a day each day of the week, with Chinese or French subtitles added on some days. The museum will be closed on June 9 and 16.
Asahi Shimbun
03-06-2025
- General
- Asahi Shimbun
VOX POPULI: Rare photos of Hiroshima A-bombing show grim aftermath
The event 'Hiroshima 1945: Special Exhibition 80 Years after Atomic Bombing' opened at the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum on May 31 with many foreign visitors in attendance. (Photo by Koichiro Yoshida) There are few photographs left today that show what Hiroshima looked like immediately after the U.S. bomber Enola Gay dropped its nuclear payload on the city on Aug. 6, 1945. Of the pictures taken that day to graphically record the horrendous fate met by Hiroshima's citizens, only five film negatives still survive. They are all the works of Yoshito Matsushige (1913-2005), a photographer with the local daily newspaper The Chugoku Shimbun. Matsushige, who was 32 at the time, lived 2.8 kilometers from ground zero. Blown off his feet by the nuclear blast and bleeding from shards of broken window panes, he grabbed his camera and headed to the city. A toddler clung to its mother who could not move. A woman kept shouting her child's name. Faced with hordes of people with burnt skin and hair, Matsushige hesitated to release the shutter. 'Please forgive me,' he murmured in his heart as he steeled himself to do his job. The results are five black-and-white photographs that can be seen today. The silent witnesses show us a perspective that is decisively lacking from any aerial photo of the mushroom cloud taken from above. Matsushige's photos embody the 'suffering Hiroshima' its citizens gazed up at from under the mushroom cloud, not the Hiroshima as seen from the sky by the people who dropped the bomb. Some people may wonder about the scarcity of photos that remain. But far too many lives were wiped out by the bomb. The Chugoku Shimbun lost one-third of its workers—or 114 people. After World War II, the military incinerated many pictures, the disposal of some was regulated by the General Headquarters for the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (GHQ). At the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, an exhibition of rare, valuable photos opened on May 31. Titled 'Hiroshima 1945: Special Exhibition 80 Years after Atomic Bombing,' it highlights these weighty words of one of the photographers: 'As a record, may our photographs remain final forever.' —The Asahi Shimbun, June 3 * * * Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.
