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Festival 2025
Crazy Love
Japan, 1968

FeatureQ&A
Directed by
Michio Okabe
Running time
97 mins
FeatureQ&A

Michio Okabe’s subversive underground film was shot on 16mm in Shinjuku in 1968, and documents the radical spirit of Japan’s creative and artistic scene in those years. Crazy Love is structured as a collage of diverse activities and performers, including a happening by avant-garde art group Zero Jigen (Zero Dimension), Genpei Akasegawa’s fake bill, a march by futen (hippies), and parodies of adverts and cinema entertainment. Okabe was influenced by Kenneth Anger’s Scorpio Rising but developed his own distinctly kitsch, camp aesthetic, which is fully in evidence here; the director himself appears onscreen, acting out roles including James Bond. Challenging established social norms and codes of sexual behaviour, Crazy Love is a testament both to a liberated, experimental moment in art and film, and to an iconoclastic filmmaker.


Tickets


17 May 2025, 6:00 PM
ICA 
Director Bio



Michio Okabe (1937-2020) began his career in the mid-1960s, participating in the artist group Off Museum, and interacting with groups such as Neo-Dada and Hi Red Center. His films are known for their camp aesthetic and are highly regarded in Japan and abroad. Alongside his films, Okabe published fantastical short stories via radio readings, magazines, and fantasy literature anthologies.

Additional info



This screening is followed by an in-person Q&A with filmmaker and producer Akihiro Suzuki.