[eltdf_dropcaps type=”normal” color=”” background_color=””]E[/eltdf_dropcaps]very Harada film is a work of passion, a style that avoids any pretention for revolutionizing a genre in vain, and centers on the admirable task of maintaining in his artistic will, without pretenses or contemporary allegories beyond the simple act of telling a great story.
Harada is a fan of fantasy and science fiction, particularly the works of Isaac Asimov, and he’s devoted to contextualizing that reality in a visual style. His filmography is identified by a certain dissent and rebellion against Hollywood, as well as a jealous proximity. These characteristics keep him aware of the universal characteristics of cinema, while staying true to his own history, a spontaneous naturalism turned into a rubric.
Harada was born July 3rd 1949 in Numazu, located east of Shizuoka in Japan, more than a hundred kilometers west of Tokyo. At the age of five, he attended the Numazu Central Theater where he first saw Fred Zinneman’s The Search. The impact of the black-and-white movies he saw during his early days in Numazu is a clear influence in his narrative and cinematic style.
Harada wished to study cinema abroad and in 1972 he moved to London. During American director Howard Hawks’ tribute at the National Film Theater, Masato became fascinated with Only Angels Have Wings. During this period, Harada collaborated with Kinema Jumpo, Japan’s oldest film magazine, covering events and writing reviews. This job brought him to the San Sebastián Film Festival where was president of the Howard Hawks jury that year. It was there, in Spain, that the Young filmmaker met his mentor.
In 1973 Harada moved to Los Ángeles. Throughout the 1970s, he was active as a film reporter and critic in several Japanese newspapers and magazines. In 1979, he wrote and directed his first feature film, Goodbye Flickmania, a film that became a tribute to Howard Hawks through the story of a friendship between a 40-year-old film aficionado and a 19-year-old man immersed in adolescence still in this Young adult age.
Harada’s feature debut had an immediate impact as a new dimension for critically acclaimed Japanese cinema. From here on, with a career spanning four decades and over 20 film productions, his filmography went through every point that every character who becomes an international reference point must.
Do not miss the details in the history of this great filmmaker, one of the most purposeful contemporary directors in Japan; an internationally renowned director, in constant movement from one story to the next, making a name from one country to the next, never leaving behind his beloved Japan. The appointment is at 10:30 am, in the Teatro Principal. Join us next to Master Masato Harada and say… Más cine por favor !!
