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The Age of Our Own
(Warera no jidai)

Screening on Film
Directed by Koreyoshi Kurahara.
With Shizuo Koizumi, Hiroyuki Nagato, Katsu Yamamoto.
Japan, 1959, 35mm, black & white, 98 min.
Japanese with English subtitles.
Print source: National Film Archive of Japan

This controversial film by director Koreyoshi Kurahara is based on a story by Nobel Prize-winning author Kenzaburo Oe, adapted by Yoshio Shirasaka, a prolific writer who scripted masterpieces under every major Japanese production company (including Yasuzo Masumura's 1958 film Giants and Toys at Daiei studios). A Japanese college student attempting to study abroad in France to escape his daily troubles is met with endless frustration and ultimately forced to live an aimless life of disillusionment. Among Nikkatsu's most political films, The Age of Our Own implicitly reveals a complex reaction to the anti-Anpo struggle and its contexts.

Part of film series

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The Other New Wave.
Alternate Histories of Post WWII Japanese Cinema

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The Reincarnations of Delphine Seyrig

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Rosine Mbakam, 2025 McMillan-Stewart Fellow