Programmer Jesse Trussell has pulled seven decades of Japanese cinema around one mood — the floating, sweaty, faintly melancholy stretch of a Tokyo or seaside summer. The lineup swings from Kurosawa's High and Low and Ozu's Floating Weeds to Oshima's Japanese Summer: Double Suicide, Kitano's Kikujiro, Iwai's All About Lily Chou-Chou and Hosoda's Summer Wars. If you have meant to see any of these on a real screen, this is the week.
What to expect
BAM runs the series in rotation across its Fort Greene screens, so most days offer two or three titles back-to-back and you can stack your own double feature. Presentations range from new restorations to archival prints depending on the title, all subtitled in English. The crowd is a mix of Brooklyn regulars and Ozu completists, and the lobby cafe is a workable between-films holding pen.
Good to know
- BAM Rose Cinemas is on Lafayette Avenue in Fort Greene — the B/Q/R at DeKalb and the C at Lafayette are both a short walk.
- Titles rotate daily, so check which films are running the day you go rather than assuming the whole lineup plays at once.
- BAM members get priority booking, and the Kurosawa and Ozu slots go first.
- All films screen with English subtitles, including the animated entries.
- Summer Wars is the family-friendly pick if you are bringing kids; Japanese Summer: Double Suicide very much is not.
- The Peter Jay Sharp Building has step-free access and assistive listening available at the box office.
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Common questions
Do I need a series pass?
No. Every film is sold as a single ticket, so you can come for one title or build your own double feature across an afternoon.
Which film is the best entry point?
High and Low is the crowd-pleaser — a Kurosawa kidnapping thriller that plays like a police procedural and never sags across its long runtime.
Are the films dubbed?
No, they screen in Japanese with English subtitles, which is also how the animated titles are presented.
More this weekend
