Typhoon Club

In the organizer's words:

台風クラブ Taifû Kurabu

Director: SÔMAI Shinji
1985, 115 minutes, OmeU, DCP (restored version)

Five days, during which a typhoon rises, rages and subsides, form the time frame for a student tragedy at a high school outside Tokyo. When the class clown Akira observes a night-time party of his female classmates in the school's swimming pool, he is submerged by them as an unwelcome "peeping Tom" for so long that he almost drowns. The class teacher who is called in has problems of his own. The mother and uncle of a colleague with whom he is having an affair want to force him to get married. As a result, he misses out on the needs of his pupils. Their conversations revolve around life, death and rebirth, a lesbian couple among them and the typhoon. As the typhoon approaches, the students' aggression increases and a storm of emotions is unleashed with the force of nature...
(Text: Rapid Eye Movies)

Before the screening, Olaf Möller will give a short introduction to the work of Sômai Shinji.
The movie starts at 7 pm.

Olaf Möller works as a freelance author and programmer (e.g. at the International Film Festival Rotterdam). He is also Associate Professor of Film History and Theory at Aalto University in Helsinki and the author of numerous books on cinema. Cologne residents know him from the Stadtrevue.

Film series
Director Sômai Shinji (1948-2001)
A sensitive master of long takes

Sômai Shinji is considered one of the great poets among Japanese directors. His visually powerful films are characterized by long takes, which he uses to sensitively address life and death, the challenges of growing up, family and friendship, togetherness and loneliness.

Sômai rose to prominence in Japan in the 1980s, when the film industry was struggling to find its feet after the collapse of the traditional studio system. During this transitional phase, he acted as a pioneer in the era of independent directing. In Japan, his work is highly regarded and has won numerous awards; important directors such as Hamaguchi Ryûsuke, Koreeda Hirokazu and Kurosawa Kiyoshi were influenced by him. For a long time, Sômai was little known outside Japan, but his work has been rediscovered and enthusiastically received by critics and audiences, especially in recent years, after Ohikkoshi (Moving) won the Venice Classics Award for Best Restored Film at the Venice International Film Festival in 2023.

Sômai Shinji was born on January 13, 1948 in Morioka, Iwate Prefecture. After dropping out of law school, he began working as an assistant director at the Nikkatsu production company in 1972, where he worked with directors such as Hasegawa Kazuhiko and Terayama Shûji. He worked freelance from 1975 to 1979 and made his directorial debut in 1980 with Tonda kappuru (Dreamy fifteen). In 1982, Sômai founded the production company "Director's Company" together with other young filmmakers, which produced the style-defining film Taifû kurabu (Typhoon Club), among others. The breadth of his work ranges from the box office success Sêrâ fuku to kikanjû (Sailor Suit and Machine Gun) to moving dramas such as Ohikkoshi (Moving) and the melancholy road movie Kazahana (KAZA-HANA).

Between 1980 and 2001, Sômai directed 13 feature films, ten of which are presented here, including digitally restored versions. The series is complemented by the groundbreaking thriller Taiyô o nusunda otoko (The Man Who Stole the Sun) by Hasegawa Kazuhiko, Sômai's great mentor.

On September 9, 2001, Sômai died of cancer at the age of only 53.

Parts of the series will also be shown in Berlin, Hamburg and Munich.

Supported by JTI

Price information:

Admission free