The Japan Foundation has announced JFF Plus—a new online Japanese film festival in response to the ongoing worldwide coronavirus pandemic, which is preventing regional audiences from experiencing Japanese cinema in movie theaters. The virtual film festival will run from Friday, December 4 through Sunday, December 13, 2020.

We have teamed up with the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens to bring you this virtual lecture.

Wednesday, December 9th, 2020

Time: 7:00pm (EST)

Cost: FREE

Location: Virtual Lecture*

(*The link to the event will be e-mailed to you upon registration)

Japan has produced one of the world’s most fascinating national cinemas, and the Japanese view of the natural world permeates film. Images are used to project the Japanese perception of nature, be it subtly or overtly, and the resulting cinematic collages offer a fascinating look at the relationship between the people and their surroundings. This talk will consider how film acts as a vehicle for cultural representations of nature and what might be distinctive about Japanese films.

Eileen B. Mikals-Adachi is an Associate Professor of Japanese at Eckerd College, St. Petersburg, Florida. She is the first recipient of a Ph.D. in Modern Japanese Literature from Ochanomizu University in Tokyo, and she has been teaching courses on Japanese language, literature, culture and cinema for over thirty years. Her main area of expertise is Japanese women writers, but her present focus of interest is natural and supernatural elements in Japanese literature and cinema.