TESHIGAHARA Hiroshi was a multidisciplinary artist who is best known for emerging during the Japanese New Wave of the 60s and 70s with films based on stories by ABE Kobo – Pitfall (1962), Woman in the Dunes (1964) – which secured him an Oscar nomination and the Special Jury prize at Cannes – and The Face of Another (1966). The final work of the two was 240 Hours in a Day (1970), a work once thought lost but which was recently rediscovered and restored.

240 Hours a Day was a special film made for the 1970 Osaka Expo and originally shown on a four-panel screen at the Automobile Pavilion. The restored version of the film was made to be viewed on a single screen for convenience. Since its original screening, the film has been shown a handful of times, including in 2013 at the University of Tokyo’s “Documentary Film Archive Project” and at the Toy Film Museum in Kyoto in 2023. Ahead of the Osaka Expo 2025, the film will be screened at OAFF. [Jason MAHER]