Double Feature: Kamome Diner (2006), Make Way for the Jaguars! (1968) + Director Panel

This screening event is part of the “Comic Legacies on the Japanese Silver Screen” film series taking place from February through April. See here for a list of screenings.

All films are screened in Japanese with English subtitles.

This event will conclude the film series, and include a panel discussion and Q&A, featuring Director Naoko Ogigami, Curator Mika Tomita of the National Film Archive of Japan, Professor Aaron Gerow, Yale University, and Xavi Sawada, PhD Candidate, East Asian Languages & Literatures.

Second film begins at 10:00pm.

Please view a pamphlet about the film series here, authored by Professor Aaron Gerow, Xavi Sawada, David Baasch, Eugene Kwon, Adam Silverman, Ania Tropnikova, and Chloe Yan.

Kamome Diner (かもめ食堂 , 2006)
directed by Naoko Ogigami
1h 42m, 35mm

Ogigami Naoko is one of Japan’s leading women filmmakers who has often focused on characters leading lives off the beaten path. Filmed in Helsinki, Kamome Diner focuses on Sachie, who has opened a diner featuring rice balls. For a month she has no customers. Then, in short order, she has her first customer, meets Midori, a gangly Japanese tourist, and invites her to stay with her. The screening will be followed with an in-person discussion with Ogigami

Make Way for the Jaguars! (進め！ジャガーズ 敵前上陸, 1968)
directed by Yoichi Maeda
1h 23m, 35mm

There’s probably no other Japanese film like Make Way for the Jaguars! The critic Yomota Inuhiko once called it “Japan’s first Godardian slapstick parody.” Perhaps one can best think of it as a mixture of the Beatles move Help! and the Japanese New Wave (it actually was released in theaters in a double bill with an Oshima Nagisa film).  A plot by an evil mastermind to eliminate the lead singer of the Japanese “Group Sounds” rock band, The Jaguars, leads the group through a series of psychedelic, comedic escapades which end on Iwo Jima with a redoing of WWII. This will be a world premiere of an English subtitled version.

This series is co-sponsored by The National Film Archive of Japan, Yale Film Archive, and Council on East Asian Studies, with support from the Japan Foundation. 

“Kamome Diner” print provided by The Japan Foundation. “Make Way for the Jaguars!” print provided by The National Film Archive of Japan.