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The Kyoto Silent film Festival 2007

The Chaplin Society of Japan will host the 2nd Kyoto Chaplin Conference from 24-25 March, 2006 and the 1st Kyoto Silent film Festival from 24 March to 1 April, 2007.

The main theme of the conference – and a featured section of the festival – will be “Chaplin and War”. Chaplin felt himself engaged not only in the First World War of 1914-18 and the Second World of 1939-45,but also in the Cold War of the 1950s. The relevance of his comic reflections upon a tragic world loses none of its force with time:The Great Dictator attracted fresh attention in the new century and the era of the Iraq war.The conference will present new information and materials for the understanding of Chaplin’s relationship with war.

The festival will also feature an exhibition of more than one hundred set designs for Modern Times, The Great Dictator and Monsieur Verdoux drawn from the collection of David Robinson, and shown in public for the first time.

The 2nd Chaplin Conference promises much new information for even the most knowledgeable Chaplin experts. We are actively soliciting papers which emphasize the theme of Chaplin and War, but we also welcome papers on any aspect of Chaplin’s life and work. Proposals, with a brief outline of the paper, should be submitted by 15 February 2007.

We are planning to screen the restored version of SHOULDER ARMS accompanied by the Kyoto Symphony Orchestra, along with films about war by other artists, including King Vidor’s masterpiece, THE BIG PARADE (restored version) and Japanese war documentaries. The programme will include a newly discovered fragment of film of the infant Chaplin’s
comic inspiration, the Spanish clown Marceline. The principal retrospectives are dedicated to the director D.W.Griffith, the actor Sessue Hayakawa, and Japanese silent film comedians

Directors: Ono Hiroyuki and David Robinson

• Contact Information :
  
  Ono Hiroyuki
  
  The Chaplin Society of Japan
  
  Tel/Fax +81-(0)75-755-6327
  

Japan March 2006

The Chaplin Society of Japan will held the Chaplin-Kono Conference in Kyoto in Japan from the 25th to 27th of March 2006. The aim of the Chaplin-Kono Conference was to reassess Charlie Chaplin and his secretary Kono Totaichi. Kono worked for Chaplin from 1916 to 1934 and was Chaplin’s right hand man. But little is known about him. However a lot of new materials were found recently and Kono’s biography is becoming clear.

There was also an exhibition of the huge amount of collection by Higashijima Tomie’s large collection, wich included Chaplin’s portrait with his autograph for Kono, Chaplin’s train ticket, Virginia Cherrill’s portrait with her autograph for Kono, more than 300 precious photos such as Chaplin and Al Jolson or Kono and Laurel and Hardy or Ida Lupino, Kono’s own srapbook with a lot of precious newspaper clippings from those days, more than 500 pieces of letters to Kono and Chaplin and so on.

Ms Higashijima Tomie, Kono’s second wife, talked about her memories of Kono.This conference and exhibition offered new information on Chaplin.

March 25th 2006:

• Professor Frank Scheide “The influence of English Music Hall on the Nonverbal Expression of Charles Spencer Chaplin”.

• Cecilia Ceaciarelli from The Cineteca di Bologna talked about Chaplin’s unmade project.

• Davide Pozzi from The Cineteca di Bolognawill talked about restoration of Chaplin’s films with a screening of Keystone films.

• Professor Kathryn Millard talked about Chaplin’s imitators and will screen clips from her new documentary on Chaplin’s imitators.

March 26th 2006:

• Professor Nakagaki Kotaro “Chaplin and American culture”

• Professor Hattori Yuki “The History of Japan’s acceptance of Chaplin”

• David Robinson talked about Music Hall and Chaplin.

• Ono Hiroyuki talked about "Chaplin and Japan “Kono Toraichi”

• Clyde Kusatsu talked about Kono and will screen clips from his new documentary on Kono: Chaplin’s driver.

• Professor Constance B.Kuriyama talked about Kono and von Ulm.

• Higashijima Tomie talked about her husband Kono

• The actress Kuroyanagi Tomie talked about Chaplin, whom she met in New York in 1972.

• Josephine Chaplin talked about her father, interviewed by Ono Hiroyuki.

First ever performance of Timothy Brock’s reduction of Chaplin’s score for “Shoulder Arms, with Kyoto Symphony” April 1st 2007, conducted by Saito Ichiro.

The BBC Radio 3 programm “Chaplin, Celebrity and Modernity” will be broadcast on the 4th of March at 21.30 on BBC Radio 3

Introduced by Mark Kermode