Martin Scorsese and Shusaku Endo Programme

Silence is Martin Scorsese's passion project. Based on a novel by one of Japan’s most respected writers, Shusaku Endo, it is reportedly a film the Goodfellas auteur has been wanting to make for years. Celebrating the January 21 release of the flick, which follows two idealistic young Portuguese priests who set sail to Japan in 1640 on a mission to find their mentor – who is rumoured to have betrayed his faith under torture – Waseda Shochiku puts on this four-film programme highlighting both Scorsese and Endo. In addition to the former's Gangs of New York (2002) and Taxi Driver (1976), you can look forward to Kei Kumai's The Sea and Poison (1986), based on an Endo novel that touches on the Japanese military's wartime medical experiments, and Masahiro Shinoda's 1971 version of Silence. The full schedule can be viewed here (in Japanese only).