Entertainment May. 12, 2008 - 07:29AM JST ( 0 )

MADRID —

The next edition of Spain’s San Sebastian film festival, the oldest and most prestigious in the Spanish-speaking world, will feature a retrospective of Japanese film noir.

Organizers said 40 Japanese film noir movies, including Shohei Imamura’s 1958 “Endless Desire” and Takeshi Kitano’s 1987 “Violent Cop”, will be screened at the 56th edition of the festival which will be held between Sept 18 and 27.

“Japanese film noir skillfully endowed its detective stories with a national touch: the gangster sense of honor, the patient research work carried out by the police, the torment of the outcast criminal or the portrayal of a society badly hit by post-war chaos,” organizers said in a statement.

“The ‘Japan in Black’ retrospective permits an overview in this parallel history of a Japanese cinema unscreened at Western film festivals and clubs, yet enthusiastically consumed by local audiences,” it added.

AFP