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USC to Host Azumi/Baton/Godzilla: Final Wars' Kitamura

University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts, along with Visions and Voices: The USC Arts & Humanities Initiative, are hosting Japanese film directors Ryuhei Kitamura (Godzilla: Final Wars, Midnight Meat Train), Shunji Iwai, and Shinji Aoyama during their free "Contemporary Japanese Cinema: Outside, Elsewhere, In the World…" event in Los Angeles from February 19 to February 21. The three directors will participate in panel discussions after the screenings of six films, including one by Hirokazu Kore-eda. Attendees must RSVP online.

The festival will launch on Friday with Kitamura's Baton science-fiction animated film and Iwai's Hana and Alice coming-of-age drama film. Iwai wrote both films. After the screenings, Iwai and Kitamura will join USC Professor Akira Mizuta Lippit and Japanese film critic Keisuke Kitano for a discussion.

Saturday's program will have two live-action film adaptations of manga: Hirokazu Kore-eda's Air Doll film and Kitamura's film based on Yū Koyama's Azumi historical manga about a female assassin. USC Professor Youngmin Choe will discuss Air Doll with Kitano and Lippit, while Kitamura, Kitano, and Lippit assemble for Azumi's panel discussion.

The festival will end on Sunday with the screenings of two films by writer-director Shinji Aoyama: Eureka and Sad Vacation. Lippit will moderate the final panel discussion with Kitano and Aoyama himself.

[Via Japan Film Society]