A Portrait of Keiichi Tanaami

The first international DVD release of Keiichi Tanaami, the wizard of the Japanese experimental film and animation world. With this program, discover the pulsations of a singular artist for whom animation rhymes with imagination, exuberance, poetry and eroticism.

Black Cat

A short film by Keiichi Tanaami featuring the song "Fushiawase to Iu Na no Neko" by Maki Asakawa.

GOOD-BY ELVIS and USA

A trippy pop-art collage of phallic objects, naked women and American icons, most notably Elvis Presley.

Crayon Angel

A psychedelic collage of wartime stock footage and family photos, suggesting an underlying message of peace.

Sweet Friday

An animation mixing hand-drawn and cut-out techniques depicting the daily rituals of weekday morning that is occasionally interrupted by flights of fantasy delivered in stroboscopic flashes. Showing scenes of brushing teeth and face washing, Tanaami describes the film to be like a self-portrait on his favorite day of the week.

Good-by Marilyn

An erotic pop animation seemingly symbolizing his youth when his soul was taken by the Hollywood actress.

Study of the Virgin in School Uniform Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors

Commercial War

A short experimental animation by Keiichi Tanaami.

Scrap Diary

The experimental animated short is a collaborative work between Keiichi Tanaami and Nobuhiro Aihara.

Oh Yoko!

A short experimental animation by Keiichi Tanaami.

Why

A boxing ring turns into a stage for abstract animation where the punches thrown in the match and the halftone dots in reprographics gradually become indistinguishable. Tanaami shot a boxing match on a Motordrive camera, made two thousand offset prints, and rephotographed each of them. He explains his inspiration for the work being the experience of watching a boxing match on television but finding the newspaper print the next morning better capturing the exhilaration of the sport.

Red Colored Bridge

The bridge as the channel between worlds: between the living and the dead, between male and female, between sacred and profane.

Landscape

Walking Man

The experimental animated short is a collaborative work between Keiichi Tanaami and Nobuhiro Aihara.

4 Eyes

The human eye, a well-known psychedelic motif, is multiplied and sharpened in Keiichi Tanaami's film trip 4 Eyes. Using his experience designing nightclubs, Tanaami projects two copies of the same film with a slight delay, so that it appears as if the ghost is losing consciousness. (IFFR)

10 Nights' Dreams

The experimental animated short is a collaborative work between Keiichi Tanaami and Nobuhiro Aihara.

Shunga