KinoCult presents: Rashomon | Rashomon (1950) by Akira Kurosawa

Rashomon is the former main gate of ancient Kyoto - a majestic structure, destroyed by storms and never fully restored. By the end of the Middle Ages, it is so abandoned that it becomes a refuge for thieves, discarded corpses, and hopeless people. Under its ruins in pouring rain, three people take shelter - a priest, a woodcutter, and a passing traveler. They recount the story of a murder in the woods: a samurai's corpse is found, and a bandit is captured. Four witnesses provide four radically different versions of what happened, including the dead man himself, speaking through a medium. None of them is complete.

The director of Daiei - Masaichi Nagata watches the finished film, leaves the screening halfway through, and removes his name from the credits. "I don't understand what it's about," he says. Nevertheless, Daiei distributes the film, and the audience likes it, but not the critics.
At the request of Giuliana Stramiglioli from Italiafilm, Daiei sends "Rashomon" to the Venice Film Festival, where the film wins the Golden Lion. Kurosawa learns this later. And the following year, "Rashomon" also wins the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

Roger Ebert writes: "Rashomon" hit the world of cinema like a bolt from the blue." This is the film that opened Japanese cinema to the Western world.

director: Akira Kurosawa
screenplay: Akira Kurosawa and Shinobu Hashimoto - based on two stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa
starring: Toshiro Mifune, Machiko Kyo, Masayuki Mori, Takashi Shimura
cinematography: Kazuo Miyagawa
music: Fumio Hayasaka
runtime: 88 min.
language: Japanese | subtitles: Bulgarian