„Kinema jumpo” (Japanese キ ネ マ 旬報 Kinema jumpo:, letters. „Journal about cinema”) or shorter „Kinejun” (Japanese キ ネ 旬) – one of the oldest and oldest surviving magazines about the cinema of Japan and the world, has been published since July 11, 1919. Published by the publishing house Kinema Junpo-sha…
Outside of Japan, it is best known as the institution that awards the prestigious annual (except 1943-1945) national film awards of the same name, known as Kinema Junpo Award, which has existed in a statute close to the modern one since 1926 (in 1924-1925 the prize was awarded to the “best artistic” and “best entertainment” foreign films), it is also the oldest film award in the world.
Originally it came out three times a month, once a decade, which is reflected in the title (from the old principle of the Japanese calendar, dividing a month into 3 decades, „Jun”), on the 1st, 11th and 21st days of the month, however, after the Second World War, the magazine began to appear less frequently, once every two weeks.
The magazine was founded by a group of four architecture students from the Tokyo Institute of Technology (then Tokyo Technical High School), led by Saburo Tanaka. The first three issues were printed in black and white, on art paper, 4 pages; the title page of the first issue contains portraits of actresses Lillian Gish and .
Initially, Kinejun specialized in reviewing only foreign cinema, in particular, due to the fact that its creators and first authors adhered to the principles of the Pure Cinema Movement, which did not take seriously contemporary Japanese cinema, which at that time was mostly shot on film staged by the kabuki and simpa theaters. Subsequently, the magazine’s topics were expanded to include domestic films. Although the magazine for a long time positioned itself as a publication of film criticism, it later became a general film magazine, covering the Japanese film industry, new films and trends.
At the beginning of 1940, in connection with the Second World War, obeying the „soft-insistent” request of the government to the mass publications to consolidate and „self-regulate”, the editorial staff of the magazine removed the Western borrowing „cinema” from its name, renaming it „Eiga Jumpo” („Daily about movies»), But later returns to the already familiar name.
After the Tokyo edition of the magazine was destroyed in 1923 by the Great Kanto Earthquake, Kinejun continued to be published in offices based in Asia and Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture, but later moved its headquarters to Tokyo.
