Akira Kurosawa News

The Japan Art Association has appointed Caroline Kennedy, former U.S. Ambassador to Japan, as International Advisor to Praemium Imperiale. Starting in November 2018, she will preside over the U.S. Nomination Committee, recommending candidates for the Praemium Imperiale International Arts Award. Ms. Kennedy will succeed, Ambassador William Luers, former President of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, who served in this role for 18 years and will become an Honorary Advisor.

John Carpenter's first post-Halloween venture into the H.P. Lovecraft-inspired, apocalyptic vein that he would continue to mine in films like The Thing (1982) and Prince of Darkness  (1987), THE FOG depicts the seaside California town of Antonio Bay in the grips of an ancient curse and a creeping mist. Drenched in malevolent atmosphere and packing an ensemble cast that includes Adrienne Barbeau, Tom Atkins, Hal Holbrook and the mother-daughter duo of Janet Leigh and Jamie Lee Curtis, this is the director at his ingenious, chilling best, servicing a contemporary taste for gore while simultaneously evoking the spirit of Val Lewton.  

Cloud21 International (www.cloud21.com) and Kultura PR International (www.kulturapr.com) announce the first annual French Riviera Film Festival

New York based Rialto Pictures will release John Carpenter's landmark horror movie THE FOG on October 26, in its first-ever major restoration. The horror classic, in a full 4K restoration from Studiocanal, opens October 26 for limited runs at the Metrograph, in New York, Landmark's Nuart in Los Angeles, and The Music Box Theatre in Chicago.

New York based Rialto Pictures will release John Carpenter's landmark horror movie THE FOG on October 26, in its first-ever major restoration. The horror classic, in a full 4K restoration from Studiocanal, opens October 26 for limited runs at the Metrograph, in New York, Landmark's Nuart in Los Angeles, and The Music Box Theatre in Chicago.

A prolific dramatist, Tennessee Williams proved most succinct in declaring an ironic dictum: A play does not exist until it's on the stage.

As part of the 2018 Next Wave Festival, BAM and Onassis Cultural Center New York will present Speaking Truth to Power, a fall series of theater productions, conversations, and film screenings that explores the concept of free speech as a form of resistance, and examines the challenges facing individuals, societies, and movements that seek to employ it. While freedom of speech is considered a cornerstone of our democratic freedoms, ancient Greeks wrestled with the extent to which the power to speak freely could degrade the very institutions designed to protect that right. The debate about the role of truth--who is able to speak it and the potential dangers posed to our society when it is either permitted or restricted--rages on.

Seven Souls in the Skull Castle (Dokurojo no Shichinin), The Ultimate Fighting Fantasy Spectacle at IHI Stage Around Tokyo, Makes History for Japan and the Global Entertainment Industry. #japan #ihistagearoundtokyo #360theater #japanesetheater #revolutionary #success

American Coast Theater Company, the resident professional theater of Vanguard University, closes out its summer season with a intimate reimagining of Shakespeare's juiciest tragedy. MACBETH opens Friday, June 22 at the Lyceum Theater on Vanguard's Costa Mesa campus and runs through July 8.

The Film Society of Lincoln Center and Subway Cinema announce the 17th edition of the New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF), June 29 – July 15, 2018.

Rubicon Theatre presents a timely and trenchant production of Shakespeare's tragedy KING LEAR as the centerpiece of the company's 20th Anniversary Season. Directed by Co-Founder James O'Neil, the production features a 20-member cast led by acclaimed actor and company memberGeorge Ball, who has starred in previous Rubicon productions of All My Sons, Man of La Mancha, and Jacques Brel… (New York, L.A., and international companies of the latter).

Austin Film Festival & Writers Conference (AFF), the premier film festival that champions the writers' contribution to film, television, and new media, is thrilled to announce Roger Corman as the recipient of the “Extraordinary Contribution to Filmmaking” Award at the 25th annual Austin Film Festival, this October 25-November 1.

Working intimately with directors like Yasujiro Ozu, Akira Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi and Kon Ichikawa on some of their most important films, Kazuo Miyagawa (1908-99) pushed Japanese cinema to its highest artistic peaks through his lyrical, innovative, and technically flawless camerawork. Considered the greatest cinematographer of postwar Japanese cinema whose career endured through the 1990s, Miyagawa has influenced generations of leading filmmakers around the world.

At a ceremony in Tokyo today, His Imperial Highness Prince Hitachi, honorary patron of the Japan Art Association, paid homage to the winners of the Association's 2017 Praemium Imperiale International Arts Award. This year's laureates are legendary performer Mikhail Baryshnikov, world music star Youssou N'Dour, architect Rafael Moneo, visual artist Shirin Neshat and sculptor El Anatsui. Scroll down for photos from the awards ceremony!

The Japan Art Association has just announced that Mikhail Baryshnikov, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest dancers of all time as well as a multi-talented performing artist, and world music star Youssou N'Dour.

After an exciting launch in June at Tokyo Short Shorts for Season 4 of Lexus Short Films, Lexus International and The Weinstein Company have now announced Patty Jenkins, best known for directing Warner Bros. and DC Comics Wonder Woman and her debut feature Monster, and Antoine Fuqua, best known for directing the films The Magnificent Seven, The Equalizer and Training Day, to join Taylor Sheridan for the film program's selection committee.

The exhibition, Martin Scorsese, devoted to the director's life, work, and passion for cinema, which opened on December 11, has attracted more than 50,000 visitors to the Museum's galleries and to the comprehensive retrospective of the director's work in its theaters.

For the first time in the U.S., legendary Japanese composer Akira Ifukube's massively influential monster music comes to life in the chamber pop/rock aural extravaganza, Godzilla Legend-Music of Akira Ifukube. Presented by Japan's popular techno-pop bandHikashu, this 90-minute tour de force performance features favorite themes and sensational musical set pieces from some of the most reveredGodzilla movies of all time. Devised and arranged by Hikashu founding member INOUE Makoto under Ifukube's endorsement, the performance features narration by Inoue, who also plays synthesizers, and appearances by 'extreme vocalist' and multi-instrumentalist MAKIGAMI Koichi, current Hikashu front man, and rising star art-pop duo Charan-Po-Rantan. The one-night-only concert takes place Friday, April 28, 7:30 pm, at Japan Society.

See all the newly announced April-June events at Museum of the Moving Image!

Toho Co., Ltd. has announced the world premiere of a new production of William Shakespeare's romantic comedy AS YOU LIKE IT from the Tony Award-winning creative team of Michael Mayer and Tom Kitt, who will reunite after previous collaborations on American Idiot: The Musical on Broadway and Second Stage Theatre's Everyday Rapture, which will open in Tokyo in January 2017.