Solrun
Hoaas
(also
Solrun Pulvers, 1970-81)
b. August 15, 1943, Norway.
d. December 11, 2009, Australia.
BIOGRAPHY:
Solrun
Hoaas spent fourteen formative years in China and Japan. She discovered
theatre as a student in Oslo and Kyoto, where she also trained
as a Noh mask maker.
She
moved to Canberra in 1972,
taught secondary French, then worked in the Japanese Dept. and
completed an M.A. in Asian Studies at Australian National University.
In
this period she also directed theatre, translated, filmed Japanese
ritual performances on Super 8 and wrote non-fiction.
In
1977
she began solo filming on 16mm in Okinawa. In 1980
she completed a graduate diploma in film at Swinburne Institute
of Technology and in the next three years, four documentaries
from Hatoma Island, Okinawa.
She
wrote, produced and directed several Japan-related films,
including the feature film Aya (1990), and after that turned to Korea and more political content in Pyongyang
Diaries (1997) and Rushing to Sunshine (2001). She
ran film courses for AFTRS, lectured on Japanese film and
theatre, and taught Australian cinema to Japanese students from
Kyoto.
From 2004
she also turned to handmade
prints, experimenting with film images combined with copperplate
etchings, and continued to develop feature film scripts, including:
The Siren of Seoul, The Okinawan Daughter, The Watchmaker, and Fearless Tours.
She died unexpectedly in December of 2009. See Peter Tammer's Dear Solrun ... tribute, and here for other tributes.
Rushing
to Sunshine
CRITICAL
OVERVIEW:
Solrun began filming on Super 8 to
record the use of masks in ritual theatre in rural Japan, inspired
by her work on Noh masks, theatre and a background in anthropology,
but drawn to a self-reflexive and exploratory approach to ethnographic
film and a use of diary narration (Sacred Vandals, 1983).
In terms of structure, poetry with internal rhymes and rhythms
has always been as much a guide as narrative. The early work was
filmed non-sync, experimenting with a layering of sound, often
in disjunction with image (Effacement, 1980).Her
short film At Edge (1981) was a discovery of the Australian
bush through the eyes and voice of poet Judith Wright. The documentary
Green Tea and Cherry Ripe (1988)and the feature
film Aya both focused on stories of Japanese women who
had married Australian soldiers; in the former eschewing stereotypes
to show diversity, and in the latter by using a Japanese woman's
experience to tell a universal story of cross-cultural marriage
from her point-of-view. In 1994
Solrun returned to filming alone, but on video, using a diary
narration to read between the lines in her North Korean experience,
and to provide a chronological through-line as she later followed
the 'sunshine policy' and its paradoxes in South Korea. She wrote several feature film screenplays on cross-cultural themes,
including The Okinawan Daughter, shortlisted in the AWG
(SA) competition for a reading at Adelaide Film Festival 2003.
The four
Hatoma films (Waiting for Water, There's Nothing that
Doesn't Take Time, The Priestess/the Storekeeper and
Sacred Vandals) are now available as a two-DVD set from
Ronin
Films (for Australia and NZ.; for international, contact
the filmmaker)
Collections
include:
International:
Filmkontakt
Nord (Copenhagen)
Donnell
Library, New York Public Library
Pyongyang
Diariesand/or Rushing to Sunshinein
Queensborough
Public Library, American Friends Service Center
various libraries
in US Universities, incl. Rutgers, Cornell, Duke, Princeton, Columbia,
New York, Chicago, Indiana, Texas, Hawaii, USC, UCLA, UC at Berkeley,
U. of Michigan, Iowa, San Diego, and others.
Activity just prior to her death:
2007
March: Screening of At Edge in Two Fires Festival, Bradwood
Pyongyang
Diaries
June-July:
Mixed media exhibition 'Self + Effacement' at Benalla Art
Gallery with DVDs of Effacement and There's Nothing
that Doesn't Take Time, prints, masks and poetry on audio.
August: Solo
print exhbition, 'Finding the Frame' Gasworks Arts Park,
Melbourne, of etchings and solar plate prints related to early
films.
September:
screening of At Edge, Film Fanatics, Sydney.
October 27
& 28: Pyongyang Diaries and Rushing to Sunshine
screening in the first Chungmuro International Film Festival in
Seoul.
November:
Rushing to Sunshine screened at the Korean Film Archives
in Seoul at the invitation of Women in Film, Korea.
2008
April: The four films from Hatoma Island, Okinawa (Waiting
for Water, There's Nothing that Doesn't Take Time,
The Priestess/the Storekeeper and Sacred Vandals)
were honored by inclusion in the film program of the 30th Anniversary
of the Japan Ethnological
Film Society held in Naha, Okinawa.
2009
Pyongyang Diaries and Green Tea and Cherry Ripe are now featured on Australian Screen
Sacred Vandals screened at Okinawa Documentary Film Festival, Tokyo,September 2008
Effacement,
Mediawaves (Hungary), 2005
The Priestess/the
Storekeeper, Mediawaves, 2004
In Search
of the Japanese, Melbourne Underground Film Festival,
2004
Green
Tea and Cherry Ripe, Taiwan Int. Ethnographic Film
Festival, 2003
Rushing
to Sunshine, Brisbane, Bathurst, Hawaii, and Peace
and Human Security Media Festival, New York, 2001, Singapore Int.Film
Festival, 2002.
Past
Festivals included:
IDFA (Amsterdam),
FIPA (Biarritz), Berlin International Forum, Amnesty (Holland),
One World (Prague), BIFF (Brisbane), Montreal (Competition) Toronto,
Hawaii, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai Internationa Film
Festivals, Torino (Competition), TIDF and TIEFF(Taiwan), Cinema
du Réel (Competition), Margaret Mead Film Festival.
SELECT
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Selected
writings on Solrun Hoaas' films:
"Hatomajima"
by Solrun Hoaas, Cantrills Filmnotes, Nos. 31-32, Nov.
1979.
"Effacement"
by Solrun Hoaas, Cantrills Filmnotes, Nos. 33-34, August
1980.
"Hatomajima
to watashi" by Solrun Hoaas, Yomiuri
shimbun yukan,June 3, 1981.
"33rd Melbourne
Film Festival" by Dougal MacDonald, The Canberra Times,
21 June 1984. (on The Priestess/The Storekeeper and Sacred
Vandals)
'The Films
of Solrun Hoaas" by Christina Cornioley, Filmviews,No.123, Autumn 1985.
"Hatomajima"
by Noda Shinkichi, Kinema jumpo, No. 6, July 1985.
"Another
Country" by Alison Broinowski, Mainichi Daily News,March 10, 1986.
"Hatomajima
- Part 4 - Sacred Vandals" by Noda Shinkichi (in Japanese),
Eizo minzokugaku no kai program, Kyoto, 5 April, 1986.
"Personal
Statement" by Solrun Hoaas, Don't Shoot Darling! Eds.
Annette Blonski, Barbara Creed & Freda Freiberg, Greenhouse
Publications, 1987, pp. 204-206.
"War
brides in Australia" by Jeannie Zakharov, The Canberra
Times,March 30, 1989.
"Producer
brings rare insights to her documentary", interview by Anna
Murdoch and "Review" by Neil Jillett, The Age,Tuesday 4 April, 1989. (on Green Tea and Cherry Ripe)
"Reflections
on Green Tea and Cherry Ripe",by Solrun Hoaas,
Hoso Bunka Foundation Report, No. 1, July 1990.
Reel Meals,
Set Meals by Gaye Poole, Currency Press, 1999, pp. 224-226.
Twin Peaks:
Australian and New Zealand Feature Films, ed. Deb Verhoeven,
1999 (pp. 94-96, 221)
"Pyongyang
ilgi i e Seoul ilgi ssunta" (NWK/Global Citizen)
by Kang Tae-uk, Newsweek Korea, 22 March, 2000.
"The
Monaeggi Case" by Solrun Hoaas, Korean Quarterly,Fall 2000, Vol. 4, No 1.
"Three
Outlooks on South and North Shown in Sunshine Exhibition",
The Korea Times,February 3, 2001.
"Rushing
to Sunshine (Seoul Diaries)"by Timothy Tangherlini,
Korea Studies Review,No. 11, 2001.
"Letting
the Sunshine In: Reunification Issues in South Korea" by
Graham Mitchell, Metro,Nos. 131-132, 2001.
"On
Film as Fragments: Afterthoughts on Pyongyang Diaries"by Solrun Hoaas, The Journal of Design Culture and Criticism,(in Korean) No. 05, 2001.
"Sprint
to the future" by Han Lee, Korean Quarterly,Winter
2001/2002.
"Undercover
with Solrun Hoaas" Interview by Scott Burgeson, Bug,No. 5, 2002.
Review of
Pyongyang Diaries and Rushing to Sunshine by R.
Richard Grinker, The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 62,
No. 2 (May, 2003) pp. 637-639.
Other related writings by Solrun Hoaas:
"No
og maskene", Kunst og kultur,Norway, 1972.
"Kurokawa-No",
Jordens folk,Denmark, 1972.
"The
Masks of Noh", Arts in Asia,1975.
"Women
in the Arts and the Media", Mainichi Daily News 1977-78
(a series of 11 interviews with Japanese women incl. Taeko Tomiyama,
Yayori Matsui, Reisen Lee, Setsu Asakura, Sachiko Hidari, Machiko
Nasu).
"Interview
with Eiko Ishioka, Illustrator" and "Women in the Arts
and the Media Speak Out", Feminist Japan,Vol
1, No. 4, February 1978.
"Moves
for Aboriginal influence in films", The Canberra Times,June 6, 1978.
"Kabuki
theatre in perspective", The Canberra Times,June
14, 1978.
"Skådespelare
i andra länder" (interviews with Honda Mitsuhiro and
Kobayashi Katsuya), entré teatertidskrift,Sweden,
No. 2, 1979.
"Nakai
Tsuneo" (Interview and translations from Nakai's articles),
Cantrills Filmnotes Nos. 31-32, November 1979.
"Currents
in Japanese Cinema: Nagisa Oshima and Sachiko Hidari Interviewed",
Cinema Papers,No. 23, Sept-Oct. 1979.
"The Theatrical
in Japanese Folk Performance", Arts in Cultural Diversity,
Holt, Rinehart & Nelson, 1980.
"What's
Your Island? An Okinawan Experience", Pacific,July 1980.
"The
Australian Film Revival", Discovery,Vol 9,
No. 6, June 1981.
"Oshima's
unique vision of film", The National Times,August
16 to 22, 1981.
'Cinema and Censorship: the films of Nagisa Oshima - a discussion with Solrun Hoaas' 40 min. special feature on DVDs of 'Empire of Passion' and 'In the Real of the Senses' (Umbrella, 2008)
