Devotion

Devotion
(Barbara Hammer, 2000)

Devotion is a documentary about charismatic Japanese filmmaker Shinsuke Ogawa (1935–1992) and his revolutionary film collective, Ogawa Productions. Composed of extensive interviews with Ogawa’s colleagues, family members, and friends, as well as archival photos and film clips, Devotion documents the collective’s 1960s- and 70s-era films about radical political movements and popular uprisings. It also delves deeply into the powerful dynamics of the collective itself, where members lived together in an almost monastic existence, divesting themselves of family life, financial gain, and even sex, all in service to their ideals and out of loyalty to the brilliant but psychologically unstable Ogawa.
 

Images: Courtesy of The Barbara Hammer Estate and Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York.