Kino-Pravda: A Tribute to Prokino | ASAKUSA | 2025/05/09, 1:20 AM
Kino-Pravda
IM Heung-soon, Eiji Oguma, James T. Hong & Yin-Ju Chen, Mitsuo Sato / Kyoichi Yamaoka,
Prokino
Curated by Asakusa
Co-hosted by Sanya Production and Screening Committee
13 MAY - 28 MAY 2017
Press Release (PDF)
EXHIBITION EVENTS JOURNALS INITIATIVE PEOPLE ABOUT JP / EN
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Kino-Pravda: A Tribute to Prokino | ASAKUSA | 2025/05/09, 1:20 AM
Asakusa is delighted to announce the opening of “Kino-Pravda: A IM Heung-soon's Jeju Prayer (2012) reflects on this causality through
Tribute to Prokino”: a screening exhibition with a dedicated archive of the silence of Mrs. Kang Sang-hee, who lost her husband in the Jeju
newsreels and periodicals by the filmmakers’ collective Prokino (1929- Uprising (An attempted insurgency followed by an anti-communist
1934), and a day-long programme of contemporary documentaries suppression in 1948). It sheds light on the intersection of a personal
which seeks to explore a subterranean field of non-knowledge about family history and collective trauma systematically obliterated in
social psychologies, site-specific memories, and historical truths. In modern Korean history, while suggesting the concurrent rise of eco-
the tradition of cinematic realism that inspired Prokino filmmakers, tourism and militarisation through the recent controversy about the
presented works portray the lives of people in distrust, and turn the construction of a naval base in the island.
screen into a site of persecution and protest. With each work pointing
to a singular political event, the exhibition considers core subjects of Uncovering the manipulation of state media, Taiwanese American
modern politics including class struggle, state crimes, and violence, filmmaker duo James T. Hong & Yin-Ju Chen confront Japanese
reflected in today's post-ideological conditions where real images are historical revisionism with their documentary, Lessons of the Blood
subsumed neutralizing rhetoric of the quasi-fictional media space. The (2010). Consisting of archival materials, film clips, and interviews with
title “Kino-Pravda", or "Film-Truth" in Russian, refers to a pioneering survivors, the film exposes Japan’s use of biological weapons and
newsreel series in the early 20th century by Dziga Vertov, which human experimentation during the Second World War outside Harbin,
constructed fragments of present actuality to reveal a deeper truth, China, and reveals the open wounds of elderly victims, who have
otherwise inconceivable to the naked eye. suffered for years and still harbor hatred for their Japanese
perpetrators. Sociologist known for radical demystification of official
Marked as a historical point of reference will be the short films of histories by testimonial records, Eiji Oguma presents his new and only
Prokino (The Proletarian Film League of Japan, 1929-34), a collective film production Tell The Prime Minister (2015), the 109 minute film
body of young leftist filmmakers active only for 5 years. During documenting an anti-nuclear demonstration, which gathered over
increased tensions of an anti- communist campaign, leading politician 200,000 people, otherwise unreported by existing media coverage.
Yamamoto Senji was assassinated by a right-wing activist. The news Bringing together found videos from the internet, and the interviews
was followed by the sudden suicide of Communist Party chairman, with individuals including ex-Prime Minister Naoto Kan, it projects
Watanabe Masanosuke, after being tracked down during his exile in compound viewpoints through multiple lenses converged on the issues
Taiwan. The Worker-Farmer Funeral of Yamamoto Senji (1929), by the around the Fukushima catastrophe and the nuclear state apparatus.
Kyoto branch of Prokino, is an 11 minute video footage shot in 16mm
that records a combined funeral for both leaders, wherein participant The end of the 20th century faced the closure of an epoch marked by
workers and taxis formed a procession line from the Kyoto Station to ideological confrontation. Although the subsequent era blurred the
Yamamoto's home. The Tokyo branch of Prokino's The 12th Annual distinction between political opponents and neutralised the relevance
Tokyo May Day (1931) is the only remaining trace of their May Day of the ideological struggle, the contemporary media demonstrates that
films from 1927 to 1932, and shows the end of the parade route and a it is developing again with renewed vigour. As the society fails to cope
rally in Ueno Park. In other works such as Earth, (1931: dir. Ko with a new challenge of the post-ideological world, the documentary
Shukichi), and All Lines (1932: Screenplay and dir. Furukawa Ryo), the screen may well serve as a catalysis for historical contradictions. What
news film features are mixed with elements of staging and is an ideology in the cinema of testimony? What constitutes the bias of
reenactment, where the heightened gestures constitute a critique of the medium? How is it possible to conceive a visio-historical dialogue
labour struggle in the Marxist tradition. Prokino was forced to dissolve through reconstruction of cinematic truth?
in 1934 due to clean-up arrests of its members.
"Kino-Pravda: A tribute to Prokino" is curated by Asakusa with support
Screened alongside and in a separate room will be four full-length— by Sanya Production and Screening Committee and publisher, Rokka
and relatively recent—documentaries. Mitsuo Sato & Kyoichi Shuppan.
Yamaoka's Sanya - Attack to Attack (1985) shows the abysmal
conditions of day laborers in the impoverished Sanya district at the Prokino: Artist recommended by Kounosuke Kawakami (Kurashiki
high time of Japan's economic growth. Illustrating violent conflicts of University of Science and the Arts)
the labourers against local Yakuza exploiters and eventually costing
the lives of both film directors, the film ends with a remark about their
fellow workers who fled from the Korean Peninsula.
PEOPLE
Prokino (The Proletarian Film League of Japan)
Masato Sato
Kyoichi Yamaoka
IM Heung-soon
James T. Hong
Yin-Ju Chen
Eiji Oguma
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Kino-Pravda: A Tribute to Prokino | ASAKUSA | 2025/05/09, 1:20 AM
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