A Guest Without A Host Is A Ghost

Public Program

2 – 18 June, 2014

Tuesday, 10 June, 8 pm
Contemporary Image Collective

Eric Baudelaire
The Anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenobu, Masao Adachi, and 27 Years without Images (2011, 66 min.)


In 1971 Kōji Wakamatsu and Masao Adachi, the two legendary filmmakers of Japanese Nouvelle Vague, realized a documentary on the Palestinian struggle in Beirut, Lebanon. Three years later, Masao Adachi became the writer for the Japanese Red Army Faction, which was linked to the PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine). In this film, the thirty year-long journey of the Japanese Red Army is told by two of its protagonists. The stories are intertwined and reveal complex rapports between militancy, terrorism and cinema. This film considers the role of art and its tenable powerlessness that could lead to the shift from an artistic practice to armed struggle. It follows the shift from a cinematographic image to that of propaganda, and armed propaganda, before concentrating on the reconstruction of missing images.

With an introduction by Lotta Schäfer.