1929
Tokyo, Japan
9.5mm
"A group called the Amachua Shinema Kurabu (Amateur Cinema Club) published an advertisement in the morning edition of the Tokyo Asahi shimbun newspaper on February 15, 1932, which called for entries to a competition of 9.5mm films on the topic of the “New Landscape of Ginza.” While there is only little information available about Amachua Shinema Kurabu as an organization, it is presumed that this club was run by the Tokyo Asahi Shimbun; established around 1929 and housed in Asahi’s headquarter building, the club included board members such as photographers Akiyama Tetsusuke (the editor of Konishi Roku’s monthly photography magazine, Shashin geppō) and Fukuhara Shinzō as well as poet Toki Zenmaro.245 In addition to sponsoring this film competition, Amachua Shinema Kurabu organized a 9.5mm film shooting event on April 2 of the same year, where the participants gathered on the rooftop of the Asahi building and were given the chance to shoot some of the casts of Gosho’s film, including actress Tanaka Kinuyo and actor Yūki Ichirō." - Noriko Morisue, "Filming the Everyday: History, Theory, and Aesthetics of Amateur Cinema in Interwar and Wartime Japan" (Yale University: PhD Dissertation, 2020): 134-5.
Snapshot of Shōchiku actresses with 9.5mm Pathé Baby cameras.
Amateur Cinema