Shumei: The Living Legacy of Kabuki

The Frozen Moment

Created for the "Esso World Theater" series of films in 1964, it features excerpts from "Bugaku," "Gagaku," "Noh, " and "Kabuki" scenes performed by the well-known dancers, musicians and actors and actresses.

Merci Zaza - La Folle Histoire de la Cage aux Folles

A look back at "La Cage aux Folles", which ran non-stop for five years, from February 1973, on the stage of the Théâtre du Palais Royal in Paris. At a time when homosexuality was considered a crime by the law, Poiret and Serrault achieved great success in boulevard theater. Their success continued on the silver screen, with three Oscar nominations and a Broadway musical. Combining never-before-seen archives from the play, extracts from the film, confessions by Poiret and Serrault, and interviews with witnesses, this is the story of a wild epic.

Triptych – SĽUK

Mount Analogue

A live performance by Charlie Jimenez & Sioul Blaphate hosted as a pre-show to Rebel Reel CineClub's 'A Most Unholy Christmas' - a screening of Alejandro Jodorowsky's The Holy Mountain (1973) at Rio Cinema, 17th December, 2024. The performance is a live-theatre and dance piece loosely inspired by Jodorowsky's film and its influenced source Mount Analogue. Through dance, masks, and live-theatre, Mount Analogue navigates a procession of ascension through transforming bodies and shapes. A primordial place of transformation, magic, and symbols.

Je me soulève

Twenty young actors are brought together for a creation lab to create a collective work at one of the great national theatres. Over a full year, they scour contemporary Québécois poetry to tap into the spirit of the times.

The Lion Dance

Famous kabuki performer Kikugoro IV performs the Lion Dance, in which a young girl is possessed by the spirit of a lion and transforms into the demonic beast.

Alice

Written in 1865, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was a popular success. All British schoolchildren and their parents knew about the escapades of the young Alice. With a new score by Philip Glass, a figurehead of American minimalism, choreographers Amir Hosseinpour and Jonathan Lunn reimagine and reinvent Lewis Carroll's fantastical world. Freed from the original narrative, the dancers of the OnR Ballet play a new gallery of contemporary creatures and characters, joined by actress Sunnyi Melles.

Beauty

Set in a small Nagano village in the 1930s, the film follows Hanji, a young boy captivated by a local kabuki performance. Inspired by Yukio, Hanji learns kabuki with Utako. As they grow, they become skilled actors, performing in a final kabuki before World War II. After the war, Hanji returns to revive kabuki and restore the community’s spirit. In the 1980s, as he nears death, the villagers organise a final performance in his honour, where he performs “Tenryu Koishibuki” for Yukio.

An Actor's Revenge

An onnagata (female impersonator) of a Kabuki troupe avenges his parents' deaths. Remade in 1963 as Yukinojô Henge.

Tři holky jako květ

Eliška Balzerová, Iva Pazderková, and Marie Doležalová star in a comedy about life, with all its joys and sorrows. The heroines are women from three generations: an energetic and tolerant grandmother, a perfectionist and therefore stressed single mother, and a crazy, rebellious granddaughter. The play is written in the form of stand-up comedy, which is cleverly woven into the story of one family with its everyday worries and joys, as well as major problems.

An Actor's Revenge

In Edo Japan, a kabuki actor seeks revenge against the three men who drove his parents to their deaths years ago.

L'argent de la vieille

Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D.

A streetwise New York police officer transforms into the world's most unusual superhuman hero.

Koločava

The production was based on Ivan Olbracht's novel Nikola Šuhaj loupežník (Nikola Šuhaj the Robber). The music draws on Petr Ulrych's famous LP, which was released in 1974, won the Bílá vrána (White Crow) award from Mladý svět magazine, and subsequently inspired a production at Prague's Divadlo Ateliér theater. Among other things, the band Javory was formed on this occasion. The expanded band Javory also plays and sings in the 2002 production of the Brno City Theater, and additional musical numbers were created for it. Of the 25 numbers, more than half are new to the performance. Petr Ulrych won the A. Radok Award for his music. Director and author of the theatrical adaptation Stanislav Moša incorporated film footage into the production, which works wonderfully as a reminiscence of natural beauty. Also worth mentioning is the impressive choreography of the police and bandit choirs and the excellent acting and singing performances, led by Petr Štěpán in the lead role.

Troilos a Kressida

Shakespeare's tragicomedy about the banality of love, pride and war performed by DJP in Trnava... Troilus and Cressida is a tragicomic play in which Shakespeare cynically portrays the fates of legendary Greek and Trojan heroes, but also the story of one destroyed love, and especially the image of a useless war. A pseudo-historical fresco that has perhaps never been more topical in the domestic socio-political context. What does a Trojan War look like in which the greatest icons of ancient Greece do not want to fight? A kidnapped Helen as a ridiculous pretext; a sulking and proud Achilles wallowing in a tent and refusing to fight; men who rely more on bickering backstage politics than on concrete deeds; pandering, revenge and, as befits a proper Shakespeare, blood and death.

Up End Down Symphony

A new circus performance about angels and humans, whose heroes wander between earth and heaven, between memories, the present, and the world of fantasy. Up End Down is Cirku La Putyka's second project and one of its most successful – the ensemble has been performing it for over ten years... The story of a man who lives only with his memories. He is unable to detach himself from them and live freely and at ease. Everyone sometimes thinks about what will happen when that "final moment" comes. What will it look like and what will follow? Up End Down is a look at the journey from birth to death through fantasy, a journey between earth and heaven. A crossroads of genres, streets, heaven and earth, birth and death, memories and the present, smiles and tears, ups and downs.

Shaman Star

Hanbei (Arata Furuta), the boss of the labor agency Fujitsuboya is known to the underworld as the leader of the 'Last Rite Givers' (Indouya), an organization that deals with disposing of criminals for the sake of the people and society. However, in reality, he is merely a timid and mild-mannered man, too gentle to even harm a fly, whose fearsome appearance is what earned him his position. In both his public and secret life, the true leader is his wife, Oise. One day, a wandering assassin known as the 'mad dog', Yoiyami Ginji (Taichi Saotome), appears—someone who will kill anyone, regardless of who they are, as long as the price is right. Under the orders of the 'Black Blade' gang, who aim to destroy the 'Last Rite Givers' and monopolize the underground business, Ginji awaits to ambush and kill Hanbei. However, at that moment, as if by the curse of the 'Tengosei' star, a violent lightning strike causing the bodies of Hanbei and Ginji to switch.

Seethakathi

A veteran theatre artist who lives for his art 'enters' the world of films. Can the film industry hold on to his inimitable artistry?

Prisoners of the Ghostland

In the treacherous frontier city of Samurai Town, a ruthless bank robber is sprung from jail by wealthy warlord The Governor, whose adopted granddaughter Bernice has gone missing. The Governor offers the prisoner his freedom in exchange for retrieving the runaway. Strapped into a leather suit that will self-destruct within five days, the bandit sets off on a journey to find the young woman—and his own path to redemption.

Two Portraits of MIYAGINO

In Edo-era Japan, a ukiyo-e artist languishes in his master’s shadow. Creatively stifled, he finds consolation in the company of a prostitute, and becomes entangled in a love triangle. A mystery emerges involving two portraits and the sudden disappearance of the artist Sharaku. Helmed by Cannes-selected director Tatsuji Yamazaki, the film employs kabuki-inspired sequences and stylised sets.