Violent tendencies and good table manners are never far apart in the films of Mari Terashima. Her work often plays on the double meaning of “taste”— both a marker of refinement and class, and a violent expression of the desire to consume. From a bloodthirsty toy dog with a penchant for fine dining, to a troupe of self-mutilating, tea party-hosting aristocrats, the films in this collection, made between 1986 and 2009, combine eccentric characters with imagery at once abject and delicious. A key cinematic voice from Japan’s subcultural underground, Terashima explores our postmodern appetites and their fine distinctions between propriety and the vulgar.
Festival 2026
Mari Terashima: Exquisite Tastes
Curated by
Mia Parnall
Mia Parnall
Running time
105 mins
105 mins
Tickets
6 May 2026, 6:15 PM
Past Event
Barbican Centre
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Curator bio
Mia Parnall is a PhD candidate at the University of Southern California researching themes of worlding in Japanese independent film and media art. Since 2023, she has curated the online programs at Collaborative Cataloging Japan, a research and preservation initiative focusing on Japanese experimental film from 1950-1980.
Many of Mari Terashima’s works are available to watch in the CCJ Viewing Library, an initiative begun by Collaborative Cataloging Japan to improve access to experimental Japanese moving image works for institutions and individual researchers. Find out more about the platform at collabjapan.org.
Additional info
Content note: contains depictions of dead bodies, medical images


