Akira Kurosawa Festival Comes to Rio’s Museum of Modern Art

By Jack Arnhold, Contributing Reporter

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Starting this Monday, October 15th and continuing on until Sunday, October 21st, Rio’s MAM ‘Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro’ (Rio de Janeiro Museum of Modern Art), in collaboration with ACCRJ ‘Associação de Críticos de Cinema do Rio de Janeiro’ (Association of Film Critics of Rio de Janeiro), will be celebrating the life and work of Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa.

This special week of film showings will begin with a screening of ‘Rashomon,’ winner of the Golden Lion at the 1951 Venice Film Festival, and the beginning of Kurosawa’s international breakout which earned him a reputation for both critical and box-office success.

Rashomon, showing at 6:30PM, will be preceded by an introduction featuring Hernani Heffner, conservation director of MAM Cinematheque and member of ACCRJ and Ana Rodrigues, president of ACCRJ.

The rest of the week’s selection focuses on the samurai period of his filmography, exploring the different roles in which he cast the wandering swordsmen from feudal Japan. On Tuesday, October 16th, at 4PM, there will be a screening of 1957’s ‘Kumonosu-jō’ (Throne of Blood). This will be followed by 1958’s ‘Kakushi toride no san akunin’ (Hidden Fortress) – for which he won the Best Director Award at the Berlin Film Festival in 1959 – showing at 6:30PM on Wednesday, October 17th.

At 6:30PM on Thursday, October 18th, there will be a screening of ‘Yojimbo’ (The Bodyguard), from 1961; and then on Friday, October 19th, 1962’s ‘Sanjuro’ will be shown, also at 6:30PM.

Saturday, October 20th, will see a special screening at 4PM of Kurosawa’s final film, ‘Madadayo,’ released in 1993. This rare event will be accompanied by a debate with Jeremias Ferraz and Luiz Fernando Gallego, members of SBPRJ ‘Sociedade Brasileira de Psicanálise do Rio de Janeiro’ (Brazilian Society of Psychoanalysis of Rio de Janeiro). The mediator of the debate will be Leonardo Luiz Ferreira, member of ACCRJ.

To round-off this week of celebration, at 4PM on Sunday, October 21st, there will be a screening of perhaps Kurosawa’s most famous and influential film, ‘Shichinin no Samurai,’ (The Seven Samurai), released in 1954 and winner of the Silver Lion in Venice in 1954.

What: Akira Kurosawa: O Imperador e seu legado samurai – 20 anos de saudade
When: Monday, October 15th to Sunday, October 21st; showing times vary.
Where: Museum of Modern Art’s cinematheque – Avenida Infante Dom Henrique, 85 – Aterro do Flamengo – Tel: (21) 2240-5743
Entrance: Free

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