Film Title

KAE, Act Like a Girl!

1996 • 47min.20sec.
KAE, Act Like a Girl! KAE, Act Like a Girl! The idea for this scenario came from a statement in Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex, "No one is born a woman. One becomes a woman." Idemitsu depicts a woman artist married to another artist and caught between the conflicting demands of housework and creativity. It was an attitude instilled in her as child because of the way her parents and school teachers behaved toward her. "Since you're a girl, you should do the housework." When she was deciding what to study, she repeatedly heard the words, "Because you are a girl..." To use a term popular in Japan right now, she was subjected to "mind control." At first Kae, woman artist does give in because of this psychological programming, but eventually she fights against these psychological factors represented by a variety of images and wins. This process will be shown through striking images using a projector.

Whispering Light

Zawameki no moto de

1985 • 10min.50sec.
Whispering Light This personal film about the light and shadow of plants is successfully constructed using the subjective gaze of the narrator herself depicting her mother's death. This work is important to an understanding of this artist, Idemitsu.

Play and Capriciousness

Tawamure to Kimagure to

 1984 • 15min.50sec.
Play and Capriciousness The use of shadows to depict of the state of mine of a mother whose children have grown and left the home. The narrator uses herself in this film.

Toryanse

 1982 • 12min.20sec.
Tourannse This theme deals with the understanding of the essence of woman. A beautiful, abstract film created in a soft, delicate, lyrical style.

Emotional Volatility about My Father

Chichi no Jokei

 1981 • 5min.50sec.
Emotional Volatility about My Father This film is requiem for her father's death.

My America, Your America

1980 • 10min.
What is America to her? Idemitsu, who lived in America for eight years, looks introspectively at herself and her strange connection with America.

At Yukigaya 4

 1979 • 16mm • 16min.
This abstract film uses the images of tree shadows or the sky in natural light from her garden at Yukigaya. Overlapping images of a housewife's face(herself) and her mother's face combined with the images from the garden, express her view of life. The background music is Chopin with children's voices. This film expresses her philosophy. (view of life.)

At Karuizawa 1

1978 • 16mm • 8min.10sec.
This abstract film shows the images of tree shadows or the natural light of the summer sky. The use of special B/W film creates sharp contrasts depicting Karuizawa, like another world.

At Any Place 5

 1978 • 16mm • 12min.
The image of a street in a factory town sets the backdrop for overlapping images of a day in the life of a mime.

At Any Place 4:
From the Tango of a Housewife
by Mamako Yoneyama

 1978 • 16mm • 12min.30sec.
At Any Place 4 One of a series of Idemitsu's works which deal with housewives buried in everyday life. Idemitsu overlapped a 16 mm work that had Yoneyama Mamako pantomiming in her "Tango of a Housewife" for the Commemoration of the International Women's year, 1975. Behind Mamako pantomiming as a housewife which mimics the reality of a housewife's stereotyped life by means of pantomime, there are clouds, sunsets and bonfires.

At Yukigaya 3

 1977 • 16mm • 2min.30sec.
At Yukigaya 3 This film shows a colorful flower, frame by frame, with some music. The flower movement trembles to resemble a symphony.

At Any Place 3

 1977 • 16mm • 3min.40sec.
The image of a beautiful mountain sunset overlaps the image of a crowd walking in a hurry.

At Any Place 2

 1975 • 16mm • 3min.
This film shows the contents of a cup-noodle.

At Any Place 1

 1975 • 16min.
At Any Place1 This film creates a vision of a man flying into different shapes of clouds as they cross the sky.

At New Mexico 1

 1975 • 16mm • 12min.30sec.
Under the wild cloudy skies of New Mexico, Idemitsu considers the matter of native Americans in all its aspects.

Something Within Me

 1975 • 16mm • 9min.30sec.
Something Within Me This film shows lofty sentiments with music by Aki Takahashi. Idemitsu's mental images are beautifully and sensuously filmed; a mass of snails intertwined as if copulating in a group; scarlet petals; curtains swing in the wind.

At Santa Monica 3

 1975 • 16mm • 15min.30sec.
At Santa Monica 3 A landscape of her images in Santa Monica, where Idemitsu lived for 8 years.

At Yukigaya 2

 1974 • 11min.10sec.
At Yukigaya 2 An abstract film shows the images of tree shadows or the sky in natural light with sharp contrasts. In this personal film, Idemitsu lived between Japan and USA, contains the subjective gaze and her narration of "self as speaker".

At Yukigaya 1

 1974 • 3min.
At Yukigaya 1 A comical landscape of her images with light nostalgic music,(a popular song in the streets of Europe). The film stars Sam Francis who was Idemitsu's ex-husband.

Baby Variation

 1974 • 8min.
Baby Variation The film shows the colorful close-up of a liver with the background music of "My Baby" by Janice Joplin.

At Santa Monica 2

 1974 • 3min.40sec.
This film is composed of different images of nature, clouds, a girl and trees.

At Santa Monica 1

 1973 • 5min.30sec.
At Santa Monica 1 A woman's image as landscape, after she had plastic surgery.

Next

 1973 • 3min.30sec.
Next A film by Idemitsu using a work of Cindy Sherman. This film shows Idemitsu's free and easy sense of humor.

Inner-Man

1972 • 3min.40sec.
Inner-Man The film shows the images of a dancing woman who is wearing Kimono overlapping another image which a naked man is dancing. This is one of the original psychological concepts of C.G. Jung. For women, Animus is an image of a man by projection of her mental energy.

Woman's House

1972 • 13min.40sec.
Woman's House When the women's liberation movement hit the whole of America, Idemitsu filmed the Womanhouse which is the first 16mm work of Idemitsu. Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro jointly organized the Feminist Art Program at the California institute of the Arts (Cal Arts) in 1971. The Cal Arts Feminist Art Program group performed for a Womenhouse audience in1972. They transformed an old run-down mansion in Los Angeles into Womanhouse. In the kitchen a progression of sculptured breasts turned gradually into fried eggs; one bathroom contained a mass of Tampax, and if you opened the linen closet you found a trapped mannequin.

HI-Eckard

 1970 • 8mm • 12min.
Idemitsu's camera followed a Gay, Eckard who has some black humor and irony.

You can't get what you want

 1970 • 8mm • 8min.
  Rachel who is a hippy girl and Barnard who is a middle aged artist are naked dancing in the nature of Southern California.