21:00 - Teatro Verdi Pordenone
KURUTTA IPPĒJI (A Page of Madness) (JP 1926; 79 min)
by Teinosuke Kinugasa
Musical Accompaniment: Matsumura Makia
Benshi: Kataoka Ichirō

This film relates its story through images alone, and its profoundly ambiguous approach — what Aaron Gerow has described as a "doubling of past and present, reality and illusion" — frequently makes it difficult to distinguish between subjective and objective registers.
A Page of Madness was produced under the banner of the Shinkankakuha Eiga Renmei (New Perception School Film Alliance), a group whose name announced its artistic ambitions. Its creation was a genuinely communal affair: cast and crew built and painted sets together, took turns pushing the camera dolly, and worked without a fixed division of labour.
The film employs rapid rhythmic montage, multiple exposures, lens distortions, and extreme camera angles. These techniques drew comparisons with German Expressionism and French Impressionism.
Contemporary reception was largely enthusiastic. In Kinema Junpo, critic Iwasaki Akira described it as "the first film-like film born in Japan," praising a beauty that was "neither theatrical nor novelistic nor painterly." Tanaka Jun'ichiro, writing in the Hochi Shinbun, called it "the pre-eminent guidebook for the trip to cinema's future essence."
This film is part of one of the Giornate 2026's major retrospectives, "The Art of the Benshi."