Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

The Japanese Paper Film Project @kamifirumu.bsky.social · 3d

Hello from the Pordenone Silent Film Festival! We loved seeing Japanese paper films projected onto the Teatro Verdi theatre to promote our screening. Props to Phoebe for b-roll of Yoko, Hikaru, & Eric capturing the moment! A big THANK YOU to the Yanai Initiative for supporting our screening here.

2 8

The Japanese Paper Film Project @kamifirumu.bsky.social · 3d

Hello from Italy! We screened our program at the Pordenone Silent Film Festival yesterday and received our first review!

Thank you @pamhutch.bsky.social !

silentlondon.co.uk/2025/10/05/l...

Bonus: we also received "Intertitle of the Day!"

Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2025: Pordenone Post No 2

Is it still a pathetic fallacy even if the weather is true but the drama is not? As I set out to begin my day with some major melodrama, there was heavy weather in the skies above Pordenone also. W…

silentlondon.co.uk

4

The Japanese Paper Film Project @kamifirumu.bsky.social · 8d

I love paper films' materiality, especially in an age where digital streams have largely replaced physical media. When color grading, I always look at the beginning of the filmstrip and darken it to reveal the ridges and spirals of fingerprints from those who handled the films 90+ years ago.

2 11

The Japanese Paper Film Project @kamifirumu.bsky.social · 13d

Love that film. Taught it for years.

2

The Japanese Paper Film Project @kamifirumu.bsky.social · 18d

Land ho! Tonkichi's Adventure is a charming anime where nothing is as it seems.

1 6

The Japanese Paper Film Project @kamifirumu.bsky.social · 18d

Sharing from Instagram: we're beyond thrilled to play the Pordenone Silent Film Festival next month in Italy. A truly magical venue and event. #japan, #anime, #silentcinema

3 9

The Japanese Paper Film Project @kamifirumu.bsky.social · 27d

PlayTime. Students initially hate it. But when discussing why they hate it, they mention details the other students missed & then they all realize they each saw a “different” PlayTime and then want to rewatch it to see the details they didn’t think were in the film & then realize Tati is a genius.

1 3

The Japanese Paper Film Project @kamifirumu.bsky.social · Sep 7

Philly, New Jersey, and NYC friends: new program premiering next week at Lafayette's Williams Center for the Arts on Sept. 12 at 7pm. Ticket's here:

williamscenter.lafayette.edu/event/japane...

As usual, Duo Yumeno joins us for live musical accompaniment!

1 5

The Japanese Paper Film Project @kamifirumu.bsky.social · Sep 4

In case you weren't up at 2am last night to catch the live broadcast from Japan, here's a link to the English news segment from NHK World broadcast on the Japanese Paper Film Project. Thank you to journalist Takatoshi Murakami & his amazing filming crew!

www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/...

1 8

The Japanese Paper Film Project @kamifirumu.bsky.social · Sep 3

This summer NHK (Japan's national TV network) produced a great news segment on our project that broadcast in July & re-aired in August. They've now made an English version for NHK World. If you find yourself awake tonight at 2am (EST), then watch it live: www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/...

2 8

The Japanese Paper Film Project @kamifirumu.bsky.social · Sep 2

Beware of speedy turtles! Suihō Tagawa's Norakuro was a popular manga character in the 1930s who also appears in several paper films. We scanned an incomplete version of this film in 2024 but collector Natsuki Matsumoto found a complete version which we scanned this summer in Japan.

4 7

Reposted by The Japanese Paper Film Project

Katherine Groo @katherinegroo.bsky.social · Aug 31

Lehigh Valley, NYC, Philly Friends: Lafayette College's Williams Center for the Arts will host the Japanese Paper Film Project on Friday, September 12 @ 7pm! Prof Eric Faden will intro the program. Live musical accompaniment by Duo Yumeno. Please join us! williamscenter.lafayette.edu/event/japane...

2 5

The Japanese Paper Film Project @kamifirumu.bsky.social · Aug 31

New 2025 cut of our live roadshow program is done! New subtitles, fixed a lot of little (and sometimes big) mistakes, typos, random frames that crept into the cut, improved the Japanese, and incorporated several new films and/or better preservations of films already in the program!

3

The Japanese Paper Film Project @kamifirumu.bsky.social · Aug 23

Like so many paper films, this one begs for more research. This film - along with several others - targets (in an admittedly stereotyped way) 1930s Japanese girls & young women. Other films (like the Sutakora Sacchan films), however, upend gender norms. A book chapter/journal article awaits!

2 7

The Japanese Paper Film Project @kamifirumu.bsky.social · Aug 19

I use Victor Fleming’s Bombshell (Jean Harlow).
A Meta Hollywood classical film about classical Hollywood. Interesting feminist angles, interesting commentary on precode movies. And surprisingly interesting commentary on publicity and marketing.

1 1

The Japanese Paper Film Project @kamifirumu.bsky.social · Aug 18

Back to work on new films. We scanned Prof. Yo Sato's collection this summer including the Japanese folktale "Battle of Monkey & Crab." Like most Japanese folktales ... it's complicated: there's onigiri, persimmons, a crustacean tragedy, & vengeance with bees, chestnuts, and a quasi-human mortar.

3 14

The Japanese Paper Film Project @kamifirumu.bsky.social · Aug 8

Love this film and have taught it with surprising success. Students were quite engaged.

2

The Japanese Paper Film Project @kamifirumu.bsky.social · Aug 4

We always travel with musicians Yoko Reikano Kimura & Hikaru Tamaki but our Japan tour also had benshi Ichiro Kataoka & Kumiko Omori. Benshi were star Japanese film narrators popular in the 1920s & 1930s. Some paper film soundtracks include benshi so it was an honor to have live benshi on the tour.

1 3 8

The Japanese Paper Film Project @kamifirumu.bsky.social · Jul 30

The current issue of MUBI's NOTEBOOK magazine (issue #7, "Threshold of the Visible") features a GEORGEOUS profile on our project. NOTEBOOK is a print-only, biannual magazine where each issue is a bespoke design and layout based on the content. Pick up a copy or subscribe: mubi.com/en/notebook/...

4

The Japanese Paper Film Project @kamifirumu.bsky.social · Jul 29

One of the film's screened during our summer tour was Seven Little Lambs. Here's a G-rated part of the film but things turn dark quickly when the wolf eats the lambs and then the mother sheep seeks revenge. 1930s fairy tales don't pull any punches!

3 7

The Japanese Paper Film Project @kamifirumu.bsky.social · Jul 29

Whoa! It's been awhile! We've been super busy this summer touring Japan and scanning new films. We'll start with this amazing picture drawn by our research students Yara Polusmak and Mikaru Plankenhorn for Kyoto's Toy Film Museum's guest book. We were visiting the museum's new location!

6

Reposted by The Japanese Paper Film Project

Yanai Initiative for Globalizing Japanese Humanities @yanaiinitiative.bsky.social · Jun 7

For more information on Dr. Faden’s Japanese Paper Film Project ( @kamifirumu.bsky.social), please visit its webpage: kamifirumu.scholar.bucknell.edu And check out the work of the group he partners with, the Media Archaeology Research Team of the Japan Society of Image Arts and Sciences! 🎬

1 4

The Japanese Paper Film Project @kamifirumu.bsky.social · Apr 28

Our 2025 Japan summer tour (details coming soon!) needs high resolution images of paper film strips for the theatrical posters. So we shot some tests using a 100 megapixel camera. The paper film frame is just 27mm but the 100MP image reveals individual paper fibers!

1 9

Reposted by The Japanese Paper Film Project

NCC (北米日本研究資料調整協議会) @nccjapaninfo.bsky.social · Apr 24

You may be surprised to learn in the 1930s live & animated films were produced on paper! 🎞️🗾 Learn about this cinema history by revisiting an #NCCSpotlight by Eric Faden (Bucknell U): “The Japanese Paper Film Project: Preserving the History of 1930s Kami Firumu”! guides.nccjapan.org/homepage/new...

3 6

The Japanese Paper Film Project @kamifirumu.bsky.social · Apr 21

Most days working on Japanese paper films is staring at three monitors painstakingly working on films frame by frame to bring them back to life. But for one week a year, if I rotate my chair to the right, I get my own Pennsylvania version of sakura season.

3 16