June Competition: win tickets for BFI Japanese film festival

		Competition organiser: ukstudentlife.com in association with BFI Southbank
Prize:		There are 2 prizes: each prize is a pair of tickets to see a film of your choice (subject to availability) at the BFI Japanese film festival: "Japanese Gems" in London.
Japanese Gems information:		The BFI (British Film Institute) are honouring the memory of the great Japanese film ambassador Madame Kawakita with a season of work from eight award-winning Japanese directors including Akira Kurosawa, Nagisa Oshima and Seijun Suzuki. The season will run from 3-31 July 2008. The films which are being shown are listed in the table below. Films are being shown at the BFI Southbank, which is next to the National Theatre in London (the nearest Tube is Waterloo; for details of how to get there: click here). The West's discovery of Japanese cinema is usually dated from 1951, the year when Kurosawa's Rashomon won its Golden Lion in Venice. Actually, the story began much earlier: in 1928, a young man named Nagamasa Kawakita brought a fine selection of Japanese movies to Europe. He then went on to concentrate on importing the best of European cinema into Japan, while his remarkable wife, Kashiko, founded a philanthropic organisation to bridge the culture gap between Japan and the West. Madame Kawakita sadly died in 1993, but the Kawakita Memorial Film Institute lives on as a valuable resource. The directors represented in this treasure-chest of a programme lived through Japan's post-war economic and social upheavals and played a big part in transforming its culture. Often they responded directly to what they saw in the streets or read in their newspapers: all of them made brilliant social commentaries which we will screen throughout July. Yoji Yamada focused on the convivial aspects of working-class life that were in danger of disappearing, these can be seen in films such as A Wedding (Kazoku, 1970) and Tora-san’s Sunrise and Sunset (Otoko-wa Tsurai-yo: Torajiro Yuyake Koyake, 1976). Shohei Imamura made Black Rain (Kuroi Ame, 1989) set five years after the Hiroshima bomb; and Nagisa Oshima used the story of a real-life sex murderer as a template for Violence at Noon (Hakucha no Torima, 1965). Sumiko Haneda showed the miraculous survival of old traditions with films such as Akiko: Portrait of a Dancer (Akiko: Aru Dancer no Shozo, 1985) while Kaneto Shindo highlighted the continuing hardships of some peasant lives in the compelling Oniba (1964), part fable, part allegory and part horror film. Many of these directors also took fresh looks at Japan's history; Oshima's The Ceremony provactively re-reads the postwar decades across the story of one family. Kurosawa and Shindo offered equally challenging takes on feudal Japan. And Seijun Suzuki led the way in shaking up the yakuza and thriller genres. These 24 films add up to a panorama of a unique culture re-thinking its past and analysing its present. A fitting tribute to the memory of Kashiko Kawakita: the first lady of Japanese film.
How to enter:		To enter this competition answer this question: How many different Japanese directors have films in the "Japanese Gems" film festival? a) 5 b) 8 c) 24 [hint: see the film schedule below] Send the answer (a, b or c) and your name, address and phone number and the date, time and film name you would like to see in an e-mail: click here (the title of the message must be "UK-Japanese Gems competition", and it should be sent to mark@ukstudentlife.com)
Who can enter?		To enter this competition you must be aged 16 or over and able to see your chosen Japanese film in London.
Closing date:		The closing date for entries is midnight on Monday 30th June 2008
Other notes:		Your contact details will only be used to let you know the result of this competition - they will not be used for any other purpose. Each person may only enter this competition once.
Website links:		To buy tickets to see films at this festival and for more details from the BFI website: click here To book, select the tab All films, click on the Book button next to the performance you want to see, click on the seat you want and choose the price which applies to you (the standard adult price is £8.60 per ticket, and the price for students or other concessions is £6.25). Click on Go. Repeat for each seat, then click on Checkout and enter payment details.

English name (year of film release, director): Japanese name
Film start times at the "Japanese Gems" festival (the three cinemas in the BFI Southbank are called NFT1, NFT2 and NFT3)
Brief description

Back to top

---

FURTHER INFORMATION

The following are some websites which provide details of other UK competitions you can enter:
The Prize Finder: http://www.theprizefinder.com
UK Competitions: http://www.ukcompetitions.com

Back to top