Kwaidan - New 4K Restoration

SIE Film Center is screening a new 4K restoration of Kwaidan from Friday, October 9 through Thursday, October 15, with showings at 5:30 PM. It's a Japanese ghost story anthology from director Masaki Kobayashi, and the 4K work gives it a second life on the big screen.

Kwaidan is a quartet of ghost stories, each one a separate tale. For over a decade, Kobayashi had been known for sober political dramas and socially minded period pieces, so this was a sharp turn for him. He traded the grounded for the surreal, and the result is a film that leans hard into its own artifice. The sets are colorfully surreal and the cinematography is luminous, and the stories themselves are haunting tales of demonic comeuppance and spiritual trials. They're adapted from Lafcadio Hearn's collections of Japanese folklore, so they draw on traditional ghost stories rather than anything modern.

The screening is presented by SIE Film Center, the year-round cinematic home of Denver Film. Denver Film is a 501(c)(3) cultural arts organization and the only nonprofit theater in Colorado. Since 1978, they've promoted film as both an art form and a civic forum, staging the award-winning Denver Film Festival each November alongside their summer series, Film on the Rocks, at Red Rocks Amphitheatre.

Tickets are $13, and the run goes from Friday, October 9 through Thursday, October 15, with screenings at 5:30 PM. You can find the theater at 2510 E. Colfax Ave., Denver, CO 80206.