ONCE UPON A TIME… IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES

Intervenants:

• Hayao SHIBATA, Shibata Organization, production coordination
• Katsue TOMIYAMA, president of Image Forum, stage manager, actress in the film
• Koji WAKAMATSU, filmmaker, production manager on the film
• Yoichi SAI, filmmaker and first assistant on the film
• Akiko KOYAMA, actress and wife of N. Oshima
• Tatsuya FUJI, actor
• Catherine MILLET, actress and wife of N. Oshima
• Catherine BREILLAT, filmmaker
• Hubert NIOGRET, film critic

Portrait of a film: A story set in the 1930s, a film about crazy love, explicit about sex. A film both pornographic according to its author, and called art & essay in many countries. It was shot in Japan, but produced and edited in France to avoid Japanese censorship. A unique film in the history of cinema.

Portrait of an era: The film, which was made in 1975, deals with sexual liberation, feminist demands and the affirmation of pleasure. The popularity of pornographic cinema allows Nagisa Oshima to make a film that denounces the repression of all sensuality that has been the rule since the triumph of Japanese militarism in the 1930s. The film draws its inspiration from a real-life story: in 1936, while having sexual intercourse, Abe Sada killed an innkeeper who was her lover. Her trial made her an icon of love in Japan.

Portrait of a filmmaker: Nagisa Oshima is one of the greatest filmmakers in his country, and the emblematic figure of the Japanese new wave. Japanese cinema suffered a terrible crisis during the 1970s. Filmmakers had to find a foreign co-production to produce their films. In 1972, Nagisa Oshima stopped making films. He went on to make documentary films and host a television show dedicated to women, before directing In the realm of the Senses with the help of Anatole Dauman. This film was banned in Japan and earned the filmmaker a three-year trial. Nagisa Oshima died in 2013.