Photo from “PITFALL” Film Screening
Photo from “PITFALL” Film Screening
Photo from “PITFALL” Film Screening
Photo from “PITFALL” Film Screening
Photo from “PITFALL” Film Screening
Photo from “PITFALL” Film Screening

“PITFALL” Film Screening

Written by Kōbō Abe
Directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara

Presented by DCA Theater & Vitalist Theatre

Wednesday, January 25
6:30 PM — 9:00 PM

Claudia Cassidy Theater
FREE

When a miner leaves his employers and treks out with his young son to become a migrant worker, he finds himself moving from one eerie landscape to another, intermittently followed (and photographed) by an enigmatic man in a clean white suit, and eventually coming face to face with his inescapable destiny. Hiroshi Teshigahara’s debut feature and first collaboration with novelist Kōbō Abe, Pitfall is many things: a mysterious, unsettling ghost story, a portrait of human alienation, and a compellingly surreal critique of soulless industry, shot in elegant black and white.

Audience Advisory: This film contains mature content. The film will be presented in Japanese with English subtitles.

Following the film there will be a discussion featuring:

J.R. Jones (Panelist) is a native of Chicago and Film Editor for The Chicago Reader, which he joined in 1997. His numerous film reviews have been praised for their insight, cinematic knowledge, and graceful prose. He attended the University of Alabama Graduate Writing Program, where he studied with legendary novelist Richard Yates.

Michael A. Schneider (Panelist) is Professor of History, Director of the Center for Global Studies, and Chair of the Asian Studies Department at Knox College. He holds a Ph.D. in Modern Japanese and International History from the University of Chicago and has served as Resident Director, Great Lakes Colleges Association, Inc./ Associated Colleges of the Midwest (GLCA/ACM) Japan Study, Waseda University, Tokyo.

Mat Ryohei Matsuda (Panelist) has written extensively on the literary and dramatic works of Kobo Abe.  In addition to being an actor, musician, and coordinator of English Kabuki productions, he teaches Japanese language and culture at Knox College and holds graduate degrees from Indiana University and the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Orna Shaughnessy (Panelist) has graduate degrees in Japanese Literature from UC Berkeley and has won the East Asian Studies Award from Stanford. Her scholarly interests at Knox College are Japanese proletarian literature, the intersection of literary aesthetics and cultural politics, and the works of Kōbō Abe, including Abe’s film The Woman in the Dunes

Robin Metz (Moderator) is co-founder, executive producer, and contributing artist for Vitalist Theatre Chicago, now celebrating its 15th year. The winner of 16 international literary awards, including the Rilke International Poetry Prize, he has published in literary journals from Japan, Korea, Nepal, and numerous other nations. He is Director of Creative Writing at Knox College.

This event is presented in conjunction with the U.S. premiere production of Kōbō Abe’s The Ghost is Here, which is playing January 12 through February 19 at DCA Storefront Theater.

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