A key pillar of TIFF Cinematheque’s 2023 Pop Japan programming, the Seijun Suzuki Centenary celebrates the late Japanese iconoclast’s bold and rebellious pop-art fuelled filmography.
As Senior Video Producer I spearheaded our supporting content strategy, creating original video content that highlighted Suzuki’s unique visual style, while also educating those unfamiliar with his work and influence.
April 2023
The fifth entry in TIFF’s Signature Moves series, this piece highlights Suzuki’s heightened visual style, bold use of colour, and his unintentional surrealism.
To help better contextualize Suzuki’s work for new audiences we brought Canadian filmmaker Connor Jessup into TIFF‘s Studio 9 to discuss where to start with Suzuki, as well as his influence on Western cinema.
Jessup also took time to dig deeper into a later indie-period Suzuki film, the atmospheric ghost story Kagero-za, which was screening in a new 35mm print.
2023 saw the content team starting to experiment more with alternate distribution platforms like Tik Tok and YouTube Shorts, which necessitated producing more vertical video. As a part of that effort I produced this short piece emphasized Suzuki‘s experimental and vivid use of colour in his 1966 yakuza thriller Tokyo Drifter.