This programme brings together Nakayama’s earliest surviving works, Hakata Dolls, alongside Kurume Kasuri and Blank Canvas, which reflect his sustained engagement with craft and artistic practice — from the making of Hakata ornamental dolls to the creation of Kurume textiles.

While Hakata Dolls and Kurume Kasuri closely observe traditional craft processes, Blank Canvas shifts toward a more pared-down and experimental mode, following painter Shun Kumashiro through the act of beginning and completing a painting.

The programme concludes with White Road, Nakayama’s final self-produced 8mm film, an experimental and introspective work, offering a reflexive meditation on his practice as a filmmaker.

博多人形 (Hakata Dolls, 1954)
Runtime: 24 minutes
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese with English subtitles
Rating: TBC

Synopsis

Known as the earliest documentary work of Tarō Nakayama, this film features the late Yoichi Kojima, a master of Hakata doll making. Produced at a time when the city of Fukuoka was beginning to recover from the ruins of war, the film captures nostalgic scenes of the cityscape, including the Hakata River and the Naka River, and areas around the old Hakata Station.

久留米絣 (Kurume Kasuri, 1954)
Runtime: 22 minutes
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese with English subtitles
Rating: TBC

Synopsis

Nakayama retraces the history of Kurume Kasuri, a type of textile that is produced through more than 30 highly specialised processes, from pattern design, thread tying, to dyeing and weaving. Filmed under the guidance of artisans Kazutoshi Hatae and Naotsugu Tsukamoto, the work meticulously documents each stage of production, standing as a valuable record of these unique techniques.

白いカンバス (Blank Canvas, 1955)
Runtime: 15 minutes
Country: Japan
Language: No dialogue
Rating: PG

Synopsis

In the studio of painter Shun Kumashiro, curls of pipe smoke signal the work that is about to unfold. A line is drawn across a blank canvas, as alternating shots of the painter’s face and the surface reveal moments of pause, contemplation, and exuberance. Colours blend on the palette, and the brush moves swiftly across the canvas, forming a piece shaped through the interplay of image and music.

白い道 (White Road, 1967)
Runtime: 19 minutes
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese with English subtitles
Rating: PG

Synopsis

A young man drifts through boredom and thoughts of burden and desire, imagining distant ideals and the possibility of escape. Along the coast, he encounters an elusive woman who speaks of fleeting love and the uncertainty of where the wind may carry them.

Marking Taro Nakayama’s final self-produced 8mm work, the film reflects the frustrations and aspirations of a filmmaker caught between his life as a physician and his desire to be intertwined with the emerging experimental cinema movement of the time.

A FOCUS ON TARO NAKAYAMA 
Born in 1917 in Fukuoka, Japan, Tarō Nakayama began making home movies in the 1930s using his father’s Pathé-Baby camera. Trained as a medical doctor, he opened a clinic in 1951 while pursuing filmmaking with 8mm equipment that he acquired in 1952. 

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, he independently produced fiction and documentary works and mentored local amateur filmmakers. His film Little Bear Story and the documentary The Travelling Actors received awards at the Festival International du Film Amateur in Cannes in 1960 and 1962, respectively. From the 1970s, he made 16mm documentaries commissioned by institutions including Kyushu University and the Fukuoka Prefecture Board of Education. He was awarded the Fukuoka City Cultural Award in 1985. He passed away in 1992. 

Largely unseen outside of Japan, Nakayama’s works are presented here for the first time in newly digitised versions with English subtitles. Accompanying the screenings is a talk by Dr. Mark Player that traces Nakayama’s life in amateur filmmaking.

This screening is part of the programme Reciprocal 2026. For more screenings of this programme. Please click here. 

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