Kashima Paradise (110 mins, B&W) paints a portrait of Japanese society trapped between traditions and modern-day development; as industrialization enfolds traditional values, social awareness is all the more paralyzed by the dominant ideology. Farmlands and farmers alike give way to giant petrochemical plants and the jobs they offer; violent demonstrations cannot stop the construction of a major airport. But in the tradition of giri, the inauguration of a blast furnace is accompanied by gifts to the gods. “The gods are the only capitalists in Japan,” the filmmaker says. “And that doesn't make the class struggle any easier.”

Preceded by Short
Opération béton. Jean-Luc Godard, 1953. A young telephone operator, who was also a movie fan, was asked to film his company's new hydroelectric dam in the mountains. The operator's name was Jean-Luc Godard and if one can't find shades of Breathless in this film made four years earlier, certainly it has audacious elements (classical music, falsely synchronous conversations, etc.) surprising in an otherwise workaday project. (16 mins, B&W)