Kawamoto the Puppet Master

Born in 1925, Kihachiro Kawamoto is considered a living treasure in his home country, with over thirty years spent creating some of the world’s most sublime and atmospheric stop motion animation. Having studied in Prague under Czech animator Jiri Trnka, who encouraged him to draw on his own country’s rich cultural heritage, Kawamoto returned to Japan to make a series of painstakingly crafted masterpieces with their roots in Japanese legends and the theatrical forms of Kabuki, Noh and Bunraku theatre.

A Watershed touring programme programmed by Japanese film expert Jasper Sharp (co-founder of the specialist Japanese film website www.midnighteye.com).