Filmmaker Yoshishige Yoshida - also known as Kij? Yoshida - was one of the leading figures of the Japanese ‘New Wave’. Like fellow countercultural filmmaker Nagisa Oshima, he began making waves at the major studio Shochiku in the early 60s. However, he and other filmmakers soon embraced the creative freedom offered by the Art Theatre Guild, the hugely influential independent production company. That freedom allowed Yoshida to make the remarkable loose-knit trilogy of Eros + Massacre, Heroic Purgatory and Coup d’État. All three feature the legendary actress Mariko Okada, Yoshida’s wife and frequent artistic collaborator. Yoshida passed away in December 2022 at the age of 89. As part of this year’s festival, JFF presents the director’s cut of his 1969 masterpiece Eros + Massacre. The film is a complex, unconventional and vivid biopic of the early 20th century Japanese anarchist ?sugi Sakae and boasts some of the most extraordinary visual ideas in all of cinema.