Capital Celluloid 2021 — Day 174: Sat Nov 6

Love Letter (Tanaka, 1953): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 12.30pm

This 35mm presentation also screens on November 21st (details here) and is part of the BFI Southbank Japan season (all the films can be found via this link).

BFI introduction: 

Kinuyo Tanaka, one of Japan’s greatest actors, was also the only woman to sustain a directorial career in commercial Japanese cinema at the time. Her protagonist (played by Masayuki Mori, Tanaka’s co-star in the same year’s Ugetsu Monogatari) works as a translator of love letters from Japanese women to American GIs, a topical theme just a year after the end of the postwar American occupation.

Here (and above) is a background feature on the film and the director.