Masao Adachi Read Bio Collapse
Masao Adachi (b. 1939) is an artist, screenwriter, filmmaker, and theorist whose radical anti-imperialist beliefs have impacted his life and cinema. Adachi emerged from the Nihon University Film Study Club, alongside filmmakers like Motoharu Jonouchi and Isao Okishima, to become one of the leading figures in the underground experimental scene of the 1960s. Though best known for his writing collaborations with directors Koji Wakamatsu and Nagisa Oshima, he also directed many of his own films, which usually broach interrelated themes of sex and revolutionary politics. In the early 1970s he moved to Palestine and joined the Japanese Red Army. He resided in Lebanon for twenty-eight years, lending assistance to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine until he was arrested and extradited back to Japan in 2000. Since his release from prison, he has resumed making films. Most recently, Adachi directed REVOLUTION+1, a film based on the assassination of former prime minister Shinzo Abe in 2022, focusing on the suspect Tetsuya Yamagami. On September 27, the day of Abe’s state funeral, a 50-minute version of the film was shown in small theaters across Japan.
US Premiere: Masao Adachi, REVOLUTION +1
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By depicting Yamagami’s motive behind the crime and by having discussions about it, we demonstrated that the nature of the problem in Japan is a political crisis. Violence is neither totally negative nor totally positive, but rather something that should be considered on a case-by-case basis. In the end, I chose to depict the contradictions in their entirety, and let the audience come to their own conclusions.
Screening of A.K.A. Serial Killer and Conversation
