Arts & Events

Landmark's Shattuck Cinemas will host a special screening Wednesday, Dec. 1, of two short films: Rite of Love and Death (30 minutes) by Yukio Mishima and Rites of Love and Math (26 minutes) by Reine Graves and Edward Frenkel. The 7 p.m. screening is presented by the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute and the Berkeley Video and Film Festival, and will include a Q&A with Edward Frenkel. 

Frenkel, a professor of mathematics at UC Berkeley, co-wrote and co-directed the film and also plays the lead. The film, a sprawling allegory about truth and beauty, love and death, mathematics and tattoo, premiered in Paris in April of 2010 and has played at international film festivals and other venues around the world. It has been featured in Le Monde, the Huffington Post, Science magazine and other publications, as well as radio and TV programs in the United States and Europe. Wednesday's screening will mark its North American theatrical premiere. 

This film was inspired by Yukio Mishima's cult classic Rite of Love and Death (also known as Yukoku), made in 1965. That film had a very unusual and mysterious history of its own: after Mishima’s dramatic death on November 25, 1970, the film was banned and all copies were presumed destroyed — until the original negative was miraculously found in a jar of tea. The film has recently been released on DVD. 

Admission is free. Passes are available at the door, or can be attained in advance at East Bay Media Center, 1939 Addison St. (510) 843-3699. 

For more information on Frenkel's film, see http://math.berkeley.edu/~frenkel/RITES. and www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2010/11/30_rites.shtml