Скачать или смотреть JAPANESE PAPER FILM | Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2025

From 1932 to 1938, several Japanese companies produced
films on paper rather than celluloid. These films used pro-
prietary epidiascopic projectors for home and neighborhood
screenings, capable of screening both opaque and transparent
materials. The projectors reflected light off of an opaque film-
strip into a lens which then projected the image onto a screen.
Individual films were sold in popular department stores, or
could be ordered direct via mail catalogue. Films came in
lengths of 15, 30, or 45 metres, running about 1-3 minutes,
although some films continued across multiple reels. The pro-
jectors were hand-cranked, so there was no set projection
speed. Films included animé and live-action films (duplicated
from celluloid sources), came in black & white and color,
and some films even had original soundtracks supplied on 78
rpm discs that synchronized with the film. The soundtracks
featured music, sound effects, and dialogue, or Japanese nar-
rators called benshi. Thus, Japanese paper films represented
a fairly advanced viewing experience with sound and color
before those technologies were regularly available in the the-
atrical arena.
The films themselves are highly eclectic. Many animated
films draw on well-known Japanese folktales with mythical
creatures and legendary historical figures. Live-action films
include abridged versions of popular Japanese films, as well
as Hollywood and European imports. In addition, there were
a number of documentary, anthropological, and even educa-
tional paper films. Propaganda films supporting Japan’s 1930s
war efforts appear in both live-action and animated form. For
example, Japanese People Are Here is an animated “docu-
mentary” that retells the story of a 1934 hostage crisis that
occurred in China.
While films on paper might seem an oddity, we should re-
member that a number of pre-cinema devices, such as the
flip-book, phenakistoscope, and thaumatrope, were all paper-
based. Moreover, Japan has a long history of paper craft. From
emakimono (paper scrolls) to kamishibai (paper theatre),
Japan has long used the medium of paper for telling visual
stories. Of course, paper films are not unique to Japan. Early
U.S. filmmakers copied celluloid films to paper for copyright
deposit purposes. Japan, however, most deeply explored using
paper as a projectable alternative to celluloid.
In 1938, as part of the increasing war effort, Japan banned the
use of metal and steel for domestic toys. Projector production
for paper films ceased, and the companies slowly folded or
refocused their business. Following World War II’s devasta-
tion, very few paper films survived. Over the years, the surviv-
ing paper grew increasingly delicate, and the film collectors,
museums, and archives that held paper films were reluctant
to run them on surviving projectors for fear of further damag-
ing the films. Thus, while paper films survived, very little was
known about them because they were effectively impossible
to view.
The Japanese Paper Film Project started in America in 2019, at
Bucknell University (Lewisburg, Pennsylvania), to develop a pro-
cess for safely preserving surviving paper film prints. Our pro-
ject developed a hardware/software system called Kyōrinrin
(named after a Japanese yokai or spirit that protects lost or
unread scrolls) to digitize the films. Beginning in 2023, the
system travelled to Japan, and has thus far digitized over 225
surviving films from Japanese museums, film archives, and individual collectors. Researcher Tsuyoshi Yamabata (Itabashi
Science Museum) estimates that there are approximately 140
unique paper film titles. Thus far, the Japanese Paper Film
Project has digitized about 122 unique films.
This Giornate programme represents a diverse collection of
films that show the different modes and genres of Japanese
paper films, from live-action duplicates to original animated
films. Some films include title cards to help contextualize
them. While a few films have synchronized soundtracks, the
remaining silent films are accompanied by Duo Yumeno (Yoko
Reikano Kimura on koto and cellist Hikaru Tamaki), who com-
posed original music for the films. – Eric Faden

from Giornate's Catalogue 2025