January 01 - Shinya Tsukamoto

Happy 60th Birthday, Shinya Tsukamoto! Born today in 1960, this Japanese production designer/art director, editor, cinematographer, actor, writer, producer and film director has a considerable cult following both domestically and abroad. 

He is best known for his Tetsuo trilogy of horror films, consisting of 'Tetsuo: The Iron Man', 'Tetsuo II: Body Hammer' (1992) and 'Tetsuo: The Bullet Man' (2009).

Of these, Tsukamoto is best known for editing,co-filming, writing, producing and directing the 1989 Japanese black and white cyberpunk horror /sci=fi film 'Tetsuo' (or 'Tetsuo: The Iron Man').

The film follows a "metal fetishist" (Shinya Tsukamoto). Driven mad by the maggots wriggling in the wound he's made to embed metal into his flesh, he runs out into the night and is accidentally run down by a Japanese businessman (Tomorowo Taguchi) and his girlfriend (Kei Fujiwara).  

  

The pair then dispose of the corpse in hopes of quietly moving on with their lives. However, the businessman soon finds that he is now plagued by a vicious curse that transforms his flesh into iron.

Tsukamoto's other films include 'Tokyo Fist' (1998), 'Bullet Ballet' (1998), 'A Snake of June' (2002), 'Vital' (2004), 'Kotoko' (2011), 'Fires on the Plain' (2014) and 'Killing' (2018).

In addition to starring in almost all of his films, Tsukamoto has also appeared in films by other directors. These include Martin Scorsese, Takashi Miike ('Audition') and Japanese animator, filmmaker and actor Hideaki Anno.

Tsukamoto has been cited as an influence on popular western filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino, David Fincher, Darren Aronofsky and The Wachowskis.

Tsukamoto has been active from 1989–present. 

#borntodirect 

@tsukamoto_shiny 
@Kanopy
@js_film_ny 

@BloodyDisgusting
@HorrorMovieCast

January 01 - Ousmane Sembène

Happy Birthday, Ousmane Sembène! Born today in 1923, this Senegalese author, actor, screenwriter, producer and film director was often credited in the French style as Sembène Ousmane in articles and reference works. It was in this manner of which he seemed to favor as a way to underscore the "colonial imposition" of the naming ritual and subvert it.

Among his credits, Sembène is best known for writing and directing the first film fo which he is best known. This was the 1977 Senegalese drama/political drama film 'Ceddo'(also known as the outsiders, or non-Muslims).

The film is set in Senegal, sometime after the establishment of a European presence in the area but before the imposition of direct French colonial administration.  

It tells of one man who makes a non-conformist stand against the persecution put on him by the proponents of Christianity and Islam.

However, when local king Demba War (Matoura Dia)sides with the Muslims, the Ceddo abduct his daughter, Dior Yacine (Tabata Ndiaye), to protest their forced conversion to Islam. Two members of the tribe try and fail to recapture the princess.  

'Ceddo' was entered into the 10th Moscow International Film Festival in July of that same year of its release.  

Sembène is also best known for writing, co-producing and directing the second and the second film of which he is best known. This was the 2004 Senegalese drama film 'Moolaadé' ("magical protection").

For fear of enduring genital mutilation, a group of girls flee their own "purification" ceremony and take refuge with Collé Gallo Ardo Sy (Fatoumata Coulibaly), a woman who had spared her daughter from the same fate. 

Collé casts a spell to protect the girls, which causes much consternation among the village elders. 

In retaliation, they confiscate all radios from the women villagers and demand that the spell be broken, but Collé nevertheless holds fast. 

 
To outsiders, the act known as "female genital cutting" is often shocking. Practitioners surgically remove part or all of the female genitals. 

Traditionally, it is cut with an iron sheet or a knife, then sutured back with needlework or a thorn. There is no anesthetic during the whole process, and the disinfection is not thorough. 

Kenyan gynecologist Dr. Rosemary Mburu estimates that as much as fifteen percent of circumcised girls die of the excessive loss of blood or infection of the wound.

Sembène was what the Los Angeles Times considered one of the greatest authors of Africa, as he had often been called the "father of African film". 

Sembène had been active from 1963–2004. 

#borntodirect
#BlackDirectorsMatter

@africanfilmny 

@theguardian

@latimes 

January 01 - Frederick Wiseman

Happy 90th Birthday, Frederick Wiseman! Born today in 1930, this American theatre director, documentarian, editor, producer and director's work is "devoted primarily to exploring American institutions".

Wiseman was born to a Jewish family in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Gertrude Leah (née Kotzen) and Jacob Leo Wiseman.

Years later, Wiseman earned a Bachelor of Arts from Williams College in 1951, and a Bachelor of Law from Yale Law School in 1954. He spent 1954 to 1956 serving in the U.S. Army after being drafted.

Wisemean spent the following two years in Paris, France before returning to the United States, where he took a job teaching law at the Boston University Institute of Law and Medicine. 

He then started documentary filmmaking, and has since won numerous film awards as well as Guggenheim and MacArthur fellowships.      

  

Among his credits, Wiseman is best known for directing the 1968 American black and white cinéma vérité/documentary film 'High School'. 

  

The film shows a typical day for a group of students at Northeast High School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 

'High School' was one of the first direct cinema documentaries, and was shot over five weeks in March and April 1968. It has aired on PBS, as well as all of his other films being that the network is one of his primary funders.

The first feature-length film that Wiseman produced was American filmmaker Shirley Clarke's 1963 American black and white documentary/crime film 'The Cool World'.

Seven years later, Wiseman founded Zipporah Films, Inc., which continues to distribute his documentaries. He had named the industry after his wife, Zipporah Batshaw, of whom Wiseman married in 1955. 

Wiseman films are often described as in the observational mode, which has its roots in direct cinema, but Wiseman dislikes the term:

     "What I try to do is edit the films so that they will have a dramatic structure. That is why I object to some extent to the term "observational cinema" or cinéma vérité, because observational cinema, to me at least, connotes just hanging around with one thing being as valuable as another, and that is not true.

At least, that is not true for me, and cinéma vérité is just a pompous French term that has absolutely no meaning as far as I'm concerned."       

In 1991, 'High School' was selected for preservation in the National Film registry.

Three years later, Wisemen directed the 1994 American documentary film 'High School II'. This time, the film was shot in color and in New York City, New York. It has a runtime of almost four hours.

Among his credits, Wiseman is also known for the 1967 American Direct Cinema black and white historical/documentary film 'Titicut Follies' and the four-hour 2013 American epic documentary film 'At Berkeley'. 

In 2017, Tne New York Times called him "one of the most important and original filmmakers working today".

   

Wiseman has been known to call his films "Reality Fictions". He has been called "one of the most important and original filmmakers working today".   

Wiseman has been active from 1963–present. 

#borntodirect 

@ZipporahFilms

@libraryofcongress 

@BFI 

@pbs

@nytimes

@kanopy