The First Emperor, Hatsukuni Shirasumera Mikoto (1973 2021) dir. Masato Hara

In 1971, Hara Masato and a group or actors started shooting his 16mm film, The First Emperor, based on an old Japanese book about history and myths that is known as the Kojiki (Record of Ancient Matters). He did not finish the film. A year later, he started filming again with a small Super8 camera, all on his own, now intending to make some shots of the locations he had not previously been able to film. On the way, he reconsidered his ideas and realised that the myths could not be found anywhere outside and were not filmable in a material sense, but that they were located in cinema itself or in the making of cinema. He decided that recording his hunt for locations was the best way to finish The First Emperor, in which the Japanese myths could also serve as material. The smallest universe known as cinema corresponds with the universe of telling myths about Creation.