Make room for Kishi
 

Posted on 16.10.2023

A fascinating close-up of a little-known figure in world cinema: actress and producer Keiko Kishi, who lived between France and Japan, and was a close associate of Ozu and Ichikawa.

Keiko Kishi, une femme libre, 2023 © DR

Who was she ?

Keiko Kishi had an incredible story: a Japanese actress born in 1932, she made headlines when she married French filmmaker Yves Ciampi, who had just directed her in the first Franco-Japanese co-production, Typhoon over Nagasaki (1957). While Japan was still recovering from the wounds of war, this high-profile union marked a kind of reopening to the outside world for the Japanese nation. Her exile in France did not prevent the star from pursuing a successful career in her homeland, becoming Kon Ichikawa's favourite actress. She then travelled the world as a journalist.

The premise

A specialist in Japanese cinema (his fine documentary on Kinuyo Tanaka was screened at last year's Lumière film festival), director Pascal-Alex Vincent skilfully alternates between period archival footage, analyses by French and Japanese historians and a more intimate perspective: the testimony of Keiko Kishi herself, that of her daughter, Delphine Ciampi, and her friends (actress and director Sandrine Dumas and screenwriter Agnès de Sacy). All of them recount, with great personal ease, an atypical career and life.

Highlights

There’s an incredible photo with Ozu, who directed her in Early Spring and forgave her for giving up a forthcoming project due to her marriage... There are also the actress's grandchildren, who are proud to discover that she had been a daring entrepreneur, producing Kobayashi's legendary fantasy film Kwaïdan, in which she also starred, and then clearing the debts of the company she had set up with two fellow actresses... What spirit!

A. F.

SCREENING

Keiko Kishi, une femme libre by Pascal-Alex Vincent (Documentary, 2023, 52min)
Institut Lumière (Villa) - Monday, 16 October at 11.30am