Please join me for the Los Angeles premier of Japan Japan (2006-2007; 65 minutes) by Lior Shamri on

Friday, August 26th, 8 PM

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Japan Japan is a featurette film that veils a universal coming-of-age story with the nuances of Israeli life as a young adult after the dropping out of the country’s compulsory military service. The story’s central character is Imri, an idle-hero who passes his days in lackadaisical purgatory, dreaming of his post-conscription trip to Japan. While Imri’s naïve idealism and escapist tendencies might be more evocative of adolescent ennui, these emotions are offered a new context when repositioned alongside the expectations of early adulthood and further fueled by the geo-political tensions in Tel Aviv.
 
The film’s style mirrors Imri’s internal struggle by combining various insoluble visual tropes; at times the film becomes a documentary, a music video, a porn film, a travelogue or even a trailer for itself. Unique amongst Shamriz’s oeuvre for its quasi-linear plot and micro-budget production, Japan Japan is one of the earliest works made by the filmmaker and provides viewers with a glimpse into what would become his trademark style of deconstructing narratives and loosely tying the fragments back together, irrespective of chronology or place.
 
View trailer for Japan Japan here.
 
Lior Shamriz (b. 1978, Ashkelon) currently lives and works in Los Angeles. Shamriz studied film at the Jerusalem Film School and Experimental Media Design at Berlin University of the Arts. His films have been presented at the Berlin Film Festival, Festival del film Locarno, Torino Film Festival, Frameline Film Festival as well as MoMA New York, KW- Berlin, Centre George Pompidou Paris and the Ludwig Museum Köln. Shamriz’s filmed have received various awards at the Oberhausen Kurzfilmtage (2013, 2014, 2015) and Achtung Berlin New Berlin Award (2010). He was nominated for the Max Ophüls Prize for a Feature Film and shortlisted for the Preis der Nationalgalerie in Germany. Retrospectives include the Thessaloniki International Film Festival, Israel Film Festival, Berlin Film Festival and and Ars Independent Katowice.
 

This screening is part of a larger series of summer screenings and workshops throughout Los Angeles organized by the artist and Jesse Hoffman.