Global Perspectives on Toei’s Kyoto Studio and Its Archives
Project Gist
Unearthing Film Cultures of the Past, Building an Archive for the Future
Keywords
Archive, Film and Media Industry, Film History, Educational Outreach
Background and Purpose
Since its opening in 1975, the Toei Kyoto Studio Park has been building a collection of film-related materials. This enormous collection, not limited to Toei’s own films, includes production memos, screenplays, press kits, flyers and posters, books and magazines. The downsizing of the research personnel in the past three decades, however, led to deterioration of some parts of the collection; the database needed a major update. Our goal was to solve these problems by reassessing the collection, cataloging and preserving newly discovered materials, and thereby contribute to globalized research on Japanese film history. In so doing, we seek to feed new perspectives and cutting-edge ideas back into film literacy education at the Studio Park.
Project Achievements
This project undertook a major update and reorganization of the Toei Studio Park collection’s database, reassessed its existing and newly discovered materials, designed a film literacy program targeting teens, and conducted historical research on Japanese cinema in dialogue with English-language scholarship. Our discussion and collaboration with the Toei Studio Park and an affiliate organization of the Ministry of Culture produced remarkable results: a user-friendly database, the Studio Park Collection Library and its website, a thoughtful educational outreach program emblematized by two film history booklets, two young film scholars who can lead and manage collaborative projects, and an application for a large JSPS grant.
Future Prospects
Two members of this project will stay at the Studio Park Collection Library and engage in research and organization, thereby maintaining collaborations between Kyoto University and the Studio Park, and further developing their outreach educational program. This project’s research on Toei and the studio system will continue, focusing on women film pioneers in Japan.
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Principal Investigator
・KINOSHITA Chika
・Human and Environmental Studies
・She is Professor in the Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies, Kyoto University. Her research interests are in Japanese film history, with particular focus on gender, censorship and self-regulation, and intermediality. She is the author of Mizoguchi Kenji: Aesthetics and Politics of the Film Medium (Hosei University Press, 2016).
