Who is Shinji Somai?
I'm sure I wasn't alone in asking this question when the Edinburgh International Film Festival announced the subject of its 2012 retrospective several months ago. Although I spent the better part of two decades as a film critic who championed world cinema and still rank his countryman Akira Kurosawa as my favourite director, this Japanese filmmaker is completely unknown to me. That's hardly surprising, however, given that the EIFF's 13-strong programme of Somai's entire works is his first full retrospective outside Japan.
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