Tonight, Santa Ana will be the site of the U.S. continental premiere of a film about a group of high school girls who decide to turn their economically battered town's fortunes around by hosting and competing in a calligraphy contest.
Ryuichi Inomata's Shodo Girls!! is based on a popular televised event
in Japan called Shodo Performance Koshien, a competition among groups of high school girls
who create traditional calligraphy on 10 meter sheets of
paper.
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Choreographed and set to music, the unique competition has been credited with revitalizing the ancient art form.
The film, which was released in Japan this year, is set in Shikokuchuo city, the country's paper producing capital. The severe economic recession has the town's businesses closing at an alarming rate. Inspired by their new Calligraphy Club adviser, the
oddball collection of students set out to organize a competition that will
revive both their spirits and the town.
Tonight's 7:30 screening is presented by the Orange County Film Society, in association with the Philharmonic
Society of Orange County and Segerstrom Center for the Arts, as part of the JapanOC “Japanese Film Spotlight” event. The movie is shown in Japanese with English subtitles.
Tickets are $12 and are available at the Regency South Coast Village Theatre box office or at orangecountyfilmsociety.com. The event is free to Orange County Film Society members, and membership information is available at the web address above as well.
Regency South Coast Village Theatre is at 1561 W. Sunflower Ave., Santa Ana, across the street from South Coast Plaza.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.