Akira Kurosawa – director of two films on the Essential 100 list – was unable to shoot the slum scene on the infamous brothel streets of Koganecho, Yokohama for his film High and Low (1963), as it was considered much too dangerous for his cast and crew.

Heavenhell is a six-channel audio-video installation, commissioned by NPO Koganecho Area Management Center in Yokohama, that restages the stylized scene in the location Kurosawa originally intended. Recruiting local youth in the now cleaned-up neighbourhood, Chris Chong Chan Fui and Yasuhiro Morinaga (who have previously collaborated on award-winning films Block B and Karaoke) create a suspenseful conflation triptych where the present exhumes the past.

Akira Kurosawa is represented by two films on the Essential 100 list, Rashomon, film # 14 on the list, and Seven Samurai, film # 6 on the list.

Chris Chong Chan Fui is an award-winning Malaysian-Canadian filmmaker and media artist, who has recently exhibited work at the Cannes International Film Festival, le Centre Pompidou and the Hirshhorn Museum.

Yasuhiro Morinaga is a Tokyo-based sound artist. Curated by Andréa Picard.

Presented in collaboration with The Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, 952 Queen Street West.