Contact:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Stephanie Vevers May 9, 2012
Millennium Film Workshop
svevers@gmail.com  
646-764-3823
 
Takahiko iimura’s “MA: SPACE/TIME IN THE GARDEN OF RYOAN-JI”

films to be shown at Millennium Film Workshop

Friday, May 25th, 2012
Screening is at 8:00 PM
MA: A Japanese Concept. Takahiko Iimura’s Ryoan-ji films, with premiere of new additions.
Millennium Film Workshop ,
66 East 4th Street 10003 (bet 2nd & 3rd Ave.)
$8.00 suggested donation at the door. Seating is limited.
 212-673-0090 for theater information.
    
Subway: #6 to Astor Place or Bleeker St.,  or, F to Second Ave.
New York, NY (May 9, 2012) – A program of five short films with the concept of Ma, a Japanese word for a space in between objects, and intervals of space/time as inseparable. Ma is a traditional concept present in Japanese aesthetics as well as in everyday life. (T.I)
Iimura closely examines the Japanese concept of “ma” through his filmed composition on the zen garden at Ryoan-ji temple in Kyoto, Japan.
In progress since 1977, this series of short films includes the headlined film, which won the UNESCO International Festival of Film on Art award for film on Architecture, in 1991.
In English, there is no word for “ma” – loosely, the interval between objects or events that gives form to the whole – although music could not exist without it, and the experience of intervals is part of every moment.
In the zen garden one encounters both time and space – 
Iimura’s films on MA: Ryoan-ji give us the opportunity to dwell in and learn to recognize this concept which is at once aesthetic and philosophical, and also part of our lived experience as humans.
 
Review excerpts for  MA: SPACE/TIME IN THE GARDEN OF RYOAN-JI
"…by the end of the film, we are so aware of time as a measurement of the movement of objects through space that the rolling credits are seen in a new way: they seem to echo the visualization of the MA concept during the body of the film. "

 – Scott MacDonald, Takahiko Iimura, Film and Video, published by Anthology Film Archives, New York, 1990

"Original, personal...to integrate a philosophical agenda with a visual one...

…The aesthetic of the film is the message, it has the quality of experimental film, conceptual film – an artwork itself. Good balance of music/visuals/titles. If not as compelling for some viewers as for others, still rated as very effective. Makes one want to visit the actual garden and experience its spiritual energy. "

– Nadine Covert, Art on Screen, G.K. Hall, New York 1993


"Takahiko Iimura has respected, indeed, the way of Buddhist release and paid a profound  homage to it ." Daniel Charles, Millennium Film Journal, Issue 38, New York

The filmmaker will be present for the event and to dialogue with the audience.
MA / 間, A Japanese Concept (with new additions) – The featured films to be shown are:
MA: SPACE/TIME IN THE GARDEN OF RYOAN-JI  (1989, 16mm, Color, 16 minutes.    Sound)  Produced for The Program for Art on Film (PAF), New York, with support from Metropolitan Museum for Art, New York, & J. Paul Getty Trust, Los Angeles.  Music: Takehisa Kosugi, Text: Arata Isozaki   Received the Architecture award of UNESCO International Festival of Film on Art, 1992


THE MAKING OF <MA> IN RYOAN-JI  (1989 ,Video, B/W & Color, 10 minutes. Sound)


MA: THE STONES HAVE MOVED  (2004/2012, Video, B/W & Color, 10minutes. Music: Akiko Samukawa (2012). Co-produced: Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, CA) 

MA (INTERVALS)  Part 1 (1977, 16mm, B&W & Color, 10minutes); Part 3 (2012, 16mm, B&W & Color, 10 minutes)

Taka Iimura has previously shown some of these films at the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and in Nagoya, Osaka and Kyoto, Japan. http://www.takaiimura.com/review/noteforma.html
Takahiko Iimura has been a pioneer artist of Japanese experimental film and video, working with film since l960 and with video since 1970 while residing in New York and Tokyo. He is a widely established international artist, having numerous solo exhibitions in major museums such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Whitney Museum, New York, Anthology Film Archives, New York, Centre George Pompidou, Paris, the National Gallery Jeu de Paume, Paris, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Reina Sofia National Museum, Madrid, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo;  and an artist residency at the German Academy of Arts, Berlin, and at Bellagio Rockefeller Foundation Study Center, Bellagio, Italy.
Recently he has been involved in using computers; and in publishing more than 20 DVDs/CD-ROMs, and writing several books on film, video, and multimedia, including a book published in English, “The Collected Writings of Takahiko iimura”(Wildside Press, 2007)
The Millennium Film Workshop is one of the oldest media arts centers in the U.S., dedicated to the exhibition, study and practice of independent experimental avant-garde film – providing access to all who wish to use and learn about emulsion-based filmmaking as a medium, while embracing the current context of digital filmmaking. Known internationally as a gathering place for film/video artists and their audiences, the organization presents a variety of programs and services including open and curated Film Screenings, Equipment Access Services, 16mm and 8mm Filmmaking workshops and the Millennium Film Journal 
 

For more information, please contact Stephanie Vevers, program coordinator at
svevers@gmail.com   646-764-3823. Advance copies of the films (DVD format) available for press reviewers upon request.
Contact: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Stephanie Vevers May 9, 2012
Millennium Film Workshop
svevers@gmail.com  
646-764-3823
 
The limited numbers of DVD by iimura are available at the door.
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