Filmmaker Honored as His Works Begin Tour

One way the Telluride filmfest serves far-flung audiences is by spotlighting subjects, directors, and movies that go on to theaters, or when more-challenging fare is involved, to museums, arts centers, and other such venues.

Susumu Hani, the Japanese filmmaker who received one of this year's Telluride tributes, is benefiting from this process as a program of his work starts a wide-ranging tour. This is a welcome development, given his longtime commitment to examining the lives and problems of young people, an area Hollywood often treats frivolously or ignores.

Hani began his career in the 1950s with documentaries about schoolchildren, then turned to fiction with stories about reform-school inmates and young women in difficult marriages. He has also made numerous TV movies about African wildlife.

After a four-day run (Sept. 18-21) at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the series, called "Susumu Hani Rediscovered" will be shown at the George Eastman House in Rochester, N.Y.; the National Gallery in Washington; the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis; the Film Center in Chicago; the UCLA Film and Television Archives in Los Angeles; the Cleveland Cinmathque; the Harvard Film Archive in Cambridge, Mass.; and the Ontario Cinematheque in Toronto.

Also traveling to the wider world is a program of eight brief films called "Silver Unearthed: The French Avant Garde," an exquisite display of "pure cinema" free of storytelling but rich in visual magic. "La Tour," a portrait of the Eiffel Tower made by Ren Clair in 1928, is itself worth the price of admission.