Just because you don't have buku funds does not mean you have to shy away from dealing with deep timeless themes. Japanese director Tatsushi Omori is one such guy working with the coolest DIY Distributor I have heard about in the East. In 1980, producer Genjiro Arato decided to circumvent the archaic theatrical distribution network, still rigidly run by the ailing studios, by screening Zigeunerweisen in a mobile, travelling theatre. The move worked, the film made money and gained great critical favour, restoring Seijun Suzuki's reputation from pariah to unclassifiable genius. Twenty-five years later, Arato employs a similar strategy for his latest production, Tatsushi Omori's The Whispering of the Gods. Screened only in a self-built construction near Ueno Park in Tokyo, and advertised guerrilla-style in strategic areas of the capital, it ran for months and courted quite a bit of controversy. For it was the film's subject matter that led to Arato's decision this time around. The Whispering of the Gods' scenes of sexual abuse and animal cruelty within a tight-knit Christian community were unlikely to have passed the Eirin censor board intact. By screening it outside of the usual theatrical circuit, no submission to Eirin was necessary. (Arato's idiosyncratic stratagem seems to have paid off: after the strong critical reception it received, there is word that the film will go into regular theatrical distribution in unexpurgated form after all.) This is it. Cavah, Sujewa, Omori, the list grows and grows. (MidNight Eye)