For those familiar with his work, the Japanese film-maker Sion Sono needs little introduction. Yet – perhaps rather surprisingly, given his extensive filmography – Sono’s cinema often finds itself hidden behind the doors of film festivals or on boutique film distribution labels.
Best-known internationally for his 2008 feature Love Exposure – a four-hour epic that explores religion, crime, family and perversion, all
For years, the Japanese Superflat movement – one of the most fascinating artistic phenomena of the past decades – has been mocking the traditional (from our perspective!) Western distinction between high and low art. Stubborn like a delighted child, it keeps evading all the familiar, tamed forms.
At the beginning of the third millennium, the Cool Japan trend was in full bloom. Its crowning jewel turned out to be a new direction in Japanese art. Its main creator, Takashi Murakami, called it Superflat.
