Kashima Paradise
At our invitation, Francesca Bozzano, the Director of Collections at the Cinémathèque de Toulouse, has curated a varied selection of short and feature films from their catalog. This program includes ten screenings ranging from silent cinema, experimental films, and animation to underground, documentary, and classic films, with several restorations done by the Cinémathèque de Toulouse or from elements preserved in their vaults.
Winner of the Prix Georges-Sadoul in 1973
Using their drawings, Algerian children talk about their experience of the war. Screened secretly, seized seventeen times and censored for twelve years, this is a major film about the Algerian war.
A benchmark in militant cinema, Kashima Paradise follows and examines the power struggles between Japanese peasants and large industrial groups. Between Kashima and Tokyo, a sociological portrait of a nation in the early 1970s, painted by an exceptional cameraman, Yann Le Masson, a true legend of direct cinema. The documentary filmmaker provides unparalleled evidence of the violence of the world, and Kashima Paradise is his masterpiece. An indispensable documentary gesture, magnified by the commentary written by Chris Marker and read by Georges Rouquier.
Yann Le Masson
Yann Le Masson is a French documentary filmmaker and cinematographer. He co-founded the production collective Grain de sable with Jean-Michel Carré and Serge Poljinsky in 1974. Documentary specialist, critic, and essayist Patrick Leboutte described him at the time as an exceptional cameraman and a legend of cinéma vérité, with each of his films marking the history of documentary filmmaking. According to Leboutte, Kashima Paradise (1973), co-directed with Bénie Deswarte, is his masterpiece.
Bénie Deswartes
Bénie Deswarte is a director and sound recordist known for her work on the documentary Kashima Paradise (1973) and Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975).
In collaboration with
