Demon Pond
Masahiro Shinoda
Japan,
1979
Myth, magic, and mystery suffuse Masahiro Shinoda’s oneiric 1979 adaptation of Demon Pond, a fabular play by the renowned Kyoka Izumi. Wandering through the countryside, a schoolteacher (Tsutomu Yamazaki) arrives at a village suffering from severe drought. There, he discovers his long-lost friend, Akira (Go Kato), who is now married to Yuri (Kabuki actor Tamasaburo Bando), a potential sorceress whose fate is intertwined with a bell that must be rung to appease a nearby lake’s dragon god—otherwise, an apocalyptic flood will be unleashed upon the region. Desperate for water, the foolish villagers are planning to sacrifice Yuri to the dragon; meanwhile, a host of pond spirits, led by the love-smitten Princess Shirayuki (also Bando), debate whether they should save these humans from their deserved doom.
Latest Releases
-
A celebration of an artist’s life in the purest sense, Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus is the definitive swan song of one of the world’s greatest musicians.
Neo Sora Japan, 2023
DCP, Blu-ray -
Mauritanian French director Med Hondo’s West Indies: The Fugitive Slaves of Liberty proved a watershed event for African cinema.
Med Hondo Mauritania, 1979
DCP, Blu-ray -
Nestled away in wintry East Anatolia, public-school art teacher Samet (Deniz Celiloğlu) yearns to leave the sleepy village for cosmopolitan Istanbul.
Nuri Bilge Ceylan Turkey, 2023
DCP -
In a career-defining performance, Alain Delon plays Jef Costello, a contract killer with samurai instincts.
Jean-Pierre Melville France, 1967
DCP, Blu-ray, DVD -
Horace Ové’s fiction-film debut marks a watershed in the history of British cinema: the nation’s first feature to be written and directed by a Black filmmaker and the first to focus on the perspective of Black characters.
Horace Ové United Kingdom, 1975
DCP, Blu-ray