Cinema East Film Series continues Feb. 11 with ‘Early Spring’

The next film in the Cinema East series is Ozu Yasujiro’s 1956 feature Early Spring, which screens at 5:45 p.m. on Tuesday, February 11, 2020, at the Pickford Film Center (1318 Bay Street).

Early Spring was Ozu’s first film after Tokyo Story, and his next-to-last black and white film.  Quietly, the film builds a rich story about the lives of young office workers, infidelity, the lingering effects of the war, dissatisfaction with work, and other topics. 

“It’s become one of my favorite Ozu films, with a wonderful ensemble cast headed by Awashima Chikage, Ikebe Ryo, and Kishi Keiko,” explained series curator and librarian from Western Washington University Jeff Purdue, adding “I’ve seen this film quite a bit, including several times in theatres, and I can’t wait to see it again at the Pickford.” 

Co-sponsored by Western Libraries and the Pickford Film Center, each film in the Cinema East series, (formerly known as the Masters of Asian Cinema series), begins with an introduction from select speakers including local professors, artists, and educators.

Early Spring will be introduced by Dr. Colleen A. Laird (PhD), who is Assistant Professor of Japanese Popular Culture in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia where she teaches classes on Japanese cinema and media. She has written several articles on Japanese cinema, ranging in topics from Japanese celebrities like Kikuchi Rinko and contemporary directors such as Nishikawa Miwa and Ogigami Naoko, to historical analysis of Japanese film posters in the postwar era and the concept of “home” in Japanese cinema.  She is currently working on a monograph on Japanese women film directors, but is often distracted by smaller projects including works on Netflix Japan, the HBO show Westworld, and the role of haptics and gameplay in Japanese video games.

For more information about this film event, please see the following link:  https://www.pickfordfilmcenter.org/early-spring-cinema-east/  or contact Jeff.Purdue@wwu.edu.