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Kurosawa: The Last Emperor, Mon August 27
2018, 7:30 PM;
Mon August 27
2018, 7:30 PM

Producer Tod Davies in person

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Kurosawa: The Last Emperor shows at IFS on Mon August 27, 2018, 7:30 PM;, Mon August 27, 2018, 7:30 PM

Kurosawa: The Last Emperor
Producer Tod Davies in person
Mon August 27
2018, 7:30 PM;
Mon August 27
2018, 7:30 PM

A note from producer Tod Davies:

The IFS is screening a documentary that I produced in 1999 for the UK’s Channel 4—Kurosawa: The Last Emperor. This is a hero-director studded hour (Francis Ford Coppola, Bernardo Bertolucci, John Woo, among others), with a lot of homage being paid to the great man, Akira Kurosawa. After that, the IFS will also screen extracts from a documentary I produced in 2000 for the same channel—Emmanuelle: A Hard Look. This is, of course, a look at the famous soft core porn movies, with interviews of participants such as actors Sylvia Kristel and Laura Gemser.

The dating of the two documentaries is no coincidence. The first is pure 20th century: a celebration of a male hero, of an individual genius. The second struggles with themes that are already of the 21st in investigating why ‘bad’ films about violence—for example, spaghetti westerns—are treated seriously, while ‘bad’ films about sex—soft core porn, like the Emmanuelle films—are mocked as trash.

So that’s what I want to talk about. The difference in the subjects of the two documentaries. The difference between the reverence with which the first subject is treated, and the snark that is aimed at the second. The ‘whys’ of that. We might argue that Kurosawa made ‘good’ films, and the actors in the Emmanuelle series made ‘bad’ ones. But how are we defining that? What assumptions are we making? And why? What stories are we telling ourselves as we watch these films? —Tod Davies

Tod Davies has been an author, screenwriter, indie film producer, radio host, and publisher. She wrote and produced the films Three Businessmen and Revengers Tragedy, co-wrote Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and produced two documentaries for the UK's Channel 4, Kurosawa: The Last Emperor, and Emmanuelle: A Hard Look. She has taught writing and producing at many venues over the years, and now helms indie Exterminating Angel Press publishing books that question dominant cultural stories in entertaining and accessible ways, including Mike Madrid's The Supergirls: Fashion, Feminism, Fantasy, and the History of Comic Book Heroines, and her own The History of Arcadia series, including the most recent, fourth in the series, Report to Megalopolis or The Post-modern Prometheus. Her main interest, through all her activities in all these different media, is in how stories build culture--and how they can be used to change that culture for the better. If anything can do it, story can.

To see a trailer and read a review, visit InternationalFilmSeries.com.

Tickets

10 films for $60 with punch card
$9 general admission. $7 w/UCB student ID, $7 for senior citizens
$1 discount to anyone with a bike helmet
Free on your birthday! CU Cinema Studies students get in free.

Parking

Pay lot 360 (now only $1/hour!), across from the buffalo statue and next to the Duane Physics tower, is closest to Muenzinger. Free parking can be found after 5pm at the meters along Colorado Ave east of Folsom stadium and along University Ave west of Macky.

RTD Bus

Park elsewhere and catch the HOP to campus

International Film Series

(Originally called The University Film Commission)
Established 1941 by James Sandoe.

First Person Cinema

(Originally called The Experimental Cinema Group)
Established 1955 by Carla Selby, Gladney Oakley, Bruce Conner and Stan Brakhage.

C.U. Film Program

(AKA The Rocky Mountain Film Center)
First offered degrees in filmmaking and critical studies in 1989 under the guidance of Virgil Grillo.

Celebrating Stan

Created by Suranjan Ganguly in 2003.

C.U. Department of Cinema Studies & Moving Image Arts

Established 2017 by Chair Ernesto Acevedo-Muñoz.

Thank you, sponsors!
Boulder International Film Festival
Department of Cinema Studies & Moving Image Arts

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