The Lovers’ Exile (film screening + talk)
February 21 @ 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm EST
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The Lovers’ Exile
冥途の飛脚
Saturday, February 21, 6:30 PM (ET)
Doors open 6:00 PM | Film Screening | In-Person | JFT Event Hall
Directed by Marty Gross • 1980 • 87 minutes • Presented in Japanese with English subtitles
Bunraku combines the arts of puppetry, joruri dramatic recitation, and musical accompaniment of the samisen. Each puppet is manipulated by three handlers; the resulting ensemble effort of puppeteers and musicians creates not only a sense of heightened realism, but also a dreamlike delicacy and complexity of movement. In 2003, UNESCO proclaimed Bunraku a “masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity.”
The Lovers’ Exile is an adaptation of MEIDO NO HIKYAKU by classic Japanese dramatist CHIKAMATSU Monzaemon (1673-1724). The story, one of Chikamatsu’s domestic tragedies, recounts the love between a penniless clerk and an indentured prostitute.
The Lovers’ Exile is performed entirely by the Bunraku Ensemble of Osaka, widely considered the most sophisticated puppet theatre in the world. The Bunraku Theatre Ensemble, and numerous of its players have been declared Living National Treasures of Japan. The Lovers’ Exile is the only filmed adaptation of a classic Bunraku performance.
©Marty Gross Film Productions Inc.
After the screening, director Marty Gross, the recipient of 2025 Japan Foundation Awards, will join us for a talk on his filmmaking career and his work on preserving Japanese arts and cultural heritage.
Free admission. Registration will open on Thursday Feb 5, at 12:00 PM ET.
Director Profile:
Marty Gross is a consulting producer for companies based in North America, Europe and Asia, with focus on Japanese art, film, theatre and crafts. His company, Marty Gross Film Productions, Inc. (founded in 1975), manages one of the most comprehensive websites devoted to films on Japanese cultural and historical subjects.
Since 1974, he has produced and directed films (including As We Are, Potters at Work, The Lovers’ Exile), restored archival films on Japanese arts and crafts (such as The Leach Pottery, Mashiko Village Pottery, Japan 1937), conducted numerous interviews, produced documentaries and coordinated publication of books on the history of Japanese cinema and on Japanese animation.
© photo by Grant Delin
Related programming:
A Story from Chikamatsu (film screening)
Tuesday, Feb 10, 6:00 PM – 8:30 PM (ET)
In-Person at JFT Event Hall | Admission Free | Registration Required
One of a string of late-career masterworks made by MIZOGUCHI Kenji in the first half of the 1950s, A Story from Chikamatsu (a.k.a. The Crucified Lovers) is an exquisitely moving tale of forbidden love struggling to survive in the face of persecution. Adapted from CHIKAMATSU Monzaemon’s 1715 bunraku play, the film traces the injustices that befall a Kyoto scroll maker’s wife and his apprentice after each is unfairly accused of wrongdoing. Bound by fate in an illicit, star-crossed romance, they go on the run in search of refuge from the punishment prescribed them.
After the film, we will screen a 10-minute interview with the lead actress KAGAWA Kyoko, directed by 2025 Japan Foundation Awards recipient Marty Gross, who will join us for a brief conversation.
