In the Dryden Theatre, Hisashi Okajima will present a lecture titled My Life with Nitrate.

One of the most eminent personalities in the field of film preservation and curatorship, Hisashi Okajima (b. 1956, Aichi, Japan) is a prominent advocate of the cinematic experience in its original medium and formats. A key contributor to the activities of the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF), he has championed film conservation through groundbreaking initiatives such as the Don't Throw Film Away! project. Thanks to his longtime efforts, the history of Japanese cinema is recognized in both academic and museum worlds. Okajima has been chief curator of the National Film Center (NFC) in Tokyo since 2005, after a 26-year involvement in NFC's undertakings in film restoration, exhibition, and collection development. Okajima contributed to the resurrection and public appreciation of many important Japanese films long considered lost. These titles are now preserved at NFC's film conservation facility in Sagamihara, one of the most advanced venues of its kind and a remarkable example of architectural design applied to the conservation of cinema artifacts. In the early 1990s, Okajima brought attention to a major collection of international silent films from Tomijiro Komiya (1897–1975), now celebrated worldwide for stunning nitrate prints of masterpieces such as Sylvester (Lupu-Pick, 1924), Gardiens de phare (Jean Grémillon, 1929), and L'Atlantide (Jacques Feyder, 1921). In his eloquent and inspired speeches, Okajima often draws imaginative parallels between the materiality of film stock and other aesthetic forms of human expression (his beautiful comparison between film and sushi is now legendary in the archival community). In this presentation, Okajima will draw upon his many years of professional involvement with the art of cinema to describe the unique and often dramatic story of nitrate film in Japan and to explain how many flammable prints miraculously survived the ravages of chemistry and history.

[source: Nitrate Picture Show program, 2017-May-5]