Join us on April 12th for a night at the theater! It's sure to be an equally entertaining and educational event. We will be holding a screening of the acclaimed film Cocktail Party by Regge Life based on the Akutagawa Prize-winning novel by Tatsuhiro Ōshiro.

The screening will be followed by a special Q&A session with director Regge Life and moderated by BU Professor Sarah Frederick. We will be joined by Professor Frederick's students, so please take advantage of this college lecture experience at BU! 

About the film:

When the daughter of a Japanese businessman in Okinawa charges that a U.S. serviceman assaulted her, the serviceman claims the encounter was entirely consensual. The ensuing civil and military investigations bring to light persistent resentment going back many years on both sides about the human toil of accommodating long term military occupation.

This film contains mature elements and may not be suitable for young audiences.

About the Director: 

Theodore R. Life Jr. is a Producer/Director for film, television, and the theater. He has been awarded NEA/Bunka-cho Creative Artist Fellowship, a CGP grantee, a Japan Foundation Fellow, a Fulbright Journalist Fellowship, three CINE Golden Eagles, has been named a Sony Innovator, and nominated for three Emmys.

He has a body of work in film, television, and live theater. His trilogy of films on the Japan/US relationship include Struggle and Success, Doubles, and After America...After Japan. His recent feature film is Cocktail Party, based on the Akutagawa Prize-winning novella. He also produced and directed Live your Dream: The Taylor Anderson Story that chronicles the impact of the American English teacher who lost her life during the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

His films are part of the permanent collection at over 800 colleges and universities.

About the Moderator:

Sarah Frederick is Associate Professor of Japanese and Comparative Literature at Boston University, with affiliations with Cinema and Media Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She specializes in gender, literature, and media. She is the author of Turning Pages (University of Hawaii), a study of Japanese women’s magazines, and is working on a biography of popular LGBTQ+ writer Yoshiya Nobuko (1896-1973) and has also translated Yoshiya's work in Yellow Rose (Expanded Editions 2016).

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