On September 18 the Academy kicked off a three-month celebration honoring renowned Japanese director and artist Akira Kurosawa with the opening of a new exhibition of his film-related artwork and a special screening of Rashomon, Kurosawa’s 1950 masterpiece, in Beverly Hills. 

At the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater, Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan hosted an onstage panel discussion with producer Tom Luddy, who fostered early support for Kurosawa’s KAGEMUSHA; Shiro Mifune, son of Rashomon star Toshiro Mifune; and Hisao Kurosawa, the director’s son, who currently heads Kurosawa Productions.

Following the discussion, the Academy premiered the new digitally restored print of Rashomon.  It was the culmination of a complex, painstaking restoration process that the Academy Film Archive in association with the Kadokawa Culture Promotion Foundation, the National Film Center in Tokyo and The Film Foundation began in November 2007 (see the Restoration Story for details).

The Kurosawa celebration continued with a retrospective screening series featuring five of the director’s Academy Award-nominated and winning films – Kagemusha, Seven Samurai, Ran, Yojimbo and Dersu Uzala – at the Goldwyn and the Academy’s Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood.  The screenings conclude on October 4.

The exhibition “Akira Kurosawa: Film Artist” will be open to the public through December 14 in the Academy’s Grand Lobby and Fourth Floor galleries.  It showcases more than 100 of Kurosawa’s original drawings and paintings, numerous behind-the-scenes photographs, annotated scripts and hand-painted costumes – most of which have never been seen outside of Japan.  Admission is free.