We are pleased to welcome our distinguished guests, film director Susumu Hani, direct from his appearance at the Telluride Film Festival, and Donald Richie, noted authority on Japanese cinema. On September 10 Susumu Hani will be introduced by Donald Richie. Mr. Richie will also speak before the programs on September 11, 12, and 13. Despite their initial fame, the films of Susumu Hani, overshadowed by the more direct and dramatic work of his contemporaries-Nagisa Oshima, Yoshishige Yoshida, Masahiro Shinoda-have been relatively neglected. Yet it was Hani who first heralded the "Nouvelle Vague Japonais" with his documentary techniques, his freshness, his devotion to the children, to adolescents, to those adults who are lucky enough to remain childlike.His own childhood in wartime Japan was perhaps responsible for this abiding interest in the young, in innocence, in the problems of maturing. Afflicted from youth with a lifelong stammer, he was naturally drawn to other "problem" children and it was about these that he made his films. The children in the classrooms turned into the boys in the reformatory, turned into the innocent teenage would-be lovers facing experience, turned into the women determined to find some meaning in their lives. Everyone in the Hani film is learning how to be who they are. His films are segments of the arc which is said to end with self-knowledge.Such consistency to a theme is rare, particularly in Japan, as is such devotion to virtues now as old-fashioned as innocence. It is perhaps as a consequence of this that Hani's films are also neglected in his own country. Though more likely his distinction as a filmmaker has been eclipsed by his great local fame as the producer-director of the best TV series on African animal life.Hani himself would see no difference between his earlier films and his later TV series. They are all about young beings learning the hard rules of the world in which they live, learning to persevere. He is there with his camera to record this inspiring process.-Donald Richie This series is presented by The Japan Foundation, Tokyo, and curated by Donald Richie, in collaboration with the Telluride Film Festival and The Museum of Modern Art, New York.For their assistance in making this series possible, we thank Donald Richie, Susumu Hani, Akiko Machimura, Marie Suzuki, Lawrence Kardish, Tom Luddy, and Bill and Stella Pence. Donald Richie's introduction to the series was written for The Museum of Modern Art. Quotations from Richie in our notes combine short notes he has written for the series with excerpts from his seminal book Japanese Cinema, and (for Bride of the Andes) from International Film Guide.Thursday September 10, 1998Introduced by Donald Richie