The was a left-wing film organization, known as Prokino for short, active in the late 1920s and early 1930s in Japan. Associated with the proletarian arts movement in Japan, it primarily used small gauge films such as
16mm film and
9.5mm film to record demonstrations and workers' lives and show them in organized events or, using mobile projection teams, at factories and mines. It also published its own journals. Most of its films were
documentaries or
newsreels, but Prokino also made
fiction films and
animated films. Prominent members included
Akira Iwasaki and
Genju Sasa, although in its list of supporters one finds such figures as
Daisuke Ito,
Kenji Mizoguchi,
Shigeharu Nakano,
Tomoyoshi Murayama,
Kiyohiko Ushihara,
Kogo Noda,
Takiji Kobayashi,
Soichi Oya,
Fuyuhiko Kitagawa,
Tokihiko Okada,
Matsuo Kishi,
Kiyoshi Miki,
Denmei Suzuki, Teppei Kataoka, and
Shigeyoshi Suzuki. The movement was eventually suppressed by the police under the
Peace Preservation Law, but many former members became prominent figures in the Japanese documentary and fiction film industries.