Broken Cameras
The Anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenobu, Masao Adachi and the 27 Years Without Images
Salt Beyoğlu, Online
April 20 – May 5, 2024
April 20, 15.00, Salt Beyoğlu, Walk-in Cinema
April 29-May 5, saltonline.org
The Anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenobu, Masao Adachi and the 27 Years Without Images (2011)
Director: Eric Baudelaire
65 minutes
English, Japanese; Turkish subtitles
The Anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenobu, Masao Adachi and the 27 Years Without Images points to a broader gap in Palestinian film archives, memory, and history. Lingering between documentary and film essay, it explores an aesthetic and narrative solution to visualize the Palestinian historical presence based on the absence caused by settler colonial violence. The film borrows the form of fûkeiron, the landscape theory developed by a group of Japanese avant-garde filmmakers of the 1960s, including the acclaimed director Masao Adachi. Contemporary landscape footage of Tokyo and Beirut overlays the memories of Adachi and May Shigenobu, daughter of the Japanese Red Army’s founder, Fusako Shigenobu. The urban landscapes shot on Super 8 are accompanied by excerpts from Adachi’s early films, news broadcasts about the Palestine Liberation Organization’s political activities in the 1970s, newsreels of Fusako Shigenobu’s arrest, and May Shigenobu’s various appearances on screen.
In Greek, anabasis means “to embark” and “to return” at once, suggesting a movement toward home after a period of wandering. Following the anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenobu and Masao Adachi as their stories intertwine with the Palestinian resistance, Eric Baudelaire’s experimental documentary explores both an unexpected return to “home” and the return of the repressed.
Following the Walk-in Cinema screening on Saturday, April 20 at 15.00, the film will be streamed at saltonline.org between April 29-May 5. The film will be streamed in its original language with Turkish subtitles, and can be accessed online globally.
April 29-May 5, saltonline.org
The Anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenobu, Masao Adachi and the 27 Years Without Images (2011)
Director: Eric Baudelaire
65 minutes
English, Japanese; Turkish subtitles
The Anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenobu, Masao Adachi and the 27 Years Without Images points to a broader gap in Palestinian film archives, memory, and history. Lingering between documentary and film essay, it explores an aesthetic and narrative solution to visualize the Palestinian historical presence based on the absence caused by settler colonial violence. The film borrows the form of fûkeiron, the landscape theory developed by a group of Japanese avant-garde filmmakers of the 1960s, including the acclaimed director Masao Adachi. Contemporary landscape footage of Tokyo and Beirut overlays the memories of Adachi and May Shigenobu, daughter of the Japanese Red Army’s founder, Fusako Shigenobu. The urban landscapes shot on Super 8 are accompanied by excerpts from Adachi’s early films, news broadcasts about the Palestine Liberation Organization’s political activities in the 1970s, newsreels of Fusako Shigenobu’s arrest, and May Shigenobu’s various appearances on screen.
In Greek, anabasis means “to embark” and “to return” at once, suggesting a movement toward home after a period of wandering. Following the anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenobu and Masao Adachi as their stories intertwine with the Palestinian resistance, Eric Baudelaire’s experimental documentary explores both an unexpected return to “home” and the return of the repressed.
Following the Walk-in Cinema screening on Saturday, April 20 at 15.00, the film will be streamed at saltonline.org between April 29-May 5. The film will be streamed in its original language with Turkish subtitles, and can be accessed online globally.