Akira Kurosawa at the BFI (w/ Asif Kapadia and Ian Hayden Smith)

For this episode, Neil and Dario dive back into the work of master Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa having last talked about his cinema in the earliest days of the podcast when they screened Yojimbo for an audience in Falmouth.

The occasion for this revisit is a new, extensive retrospective of his work hosted at the BFI Southbank (and some regional partner cinemas) and on their BFI Player platform. The season is curated by filmmaker Asif Kapadia and writer Ian Hayden Smith, who Dario talked to as the two-month long season got underway.

Their discussion covers the curation approach, the influence of Kurosawa on them and the wider film community more broadly, and why he remains a key figure of focus in global film history.

Elsewhere, Neil and Dario look at some of Kurosawa's post-War films set in contemporary Japan, with a deeper focus on I Live In Fear (1955) and High and Low (1963). 

With thanks to Sarah Bemand at the BFI for the invitation to cover this season, setting up the interview with Asif and Ian and providing access to the BFI Player to view titles.

For more on the ongoing season visit the BFI website here. 

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‘Theme from The Cinematologists’

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