Award Recipients: Jury Comments
Prizes for the International Competition
Jury:
Hasumi Shigehiko (President), Pedro Costa, Alanis Obomsawin,
Kidlat Tahimik, Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Let’s Meet Again in Yamagata
Hasumi Shigehiko
No film is made for the purpose of being judged. All works are probably made with an eye toward bringing them to the general public. In that respect, the position of the individual who serves as a juror for a competition is a highly sensitive one. It is merely a relative position that is significant only during the unusual period of an international film festival, and we are not a group of experts that have been assembled on the basis of any objective decision.
However, just as an international film festival is a place of accidental encounters, this panel of jurors has operated as a locus of slightly accidental encounters. Each of the jurors must thank the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival from the bottom of our hearts for making possible these extremely valuable chance encounters. This year, people from Canada, Japan, the Philippines, Portugal, and Thailand with connections to the film world have encountered one another, and after experiencing a certain kind of intense experience together, last night we added to that over five hours of earnest discussion. The results of that discussion have been already announced, but it goes without saying that if the combination of our ages, generational affiliations, and nationalities had been varied even slightly, we could have ended up with completely different selections.
Almost all of the entries in this year’s competitions were shot on video, and those shot on film were distinctly in the minority. This is a situation that was unimaginable at the outset of the film festival almost twenty years ago, but we can say that it is completely appropriate to the twenty-first century. The advances in digital technology that have occurred in the intervening time have brought people closer to film in vast numbers unthinkable in the twentieth century; this is a situation that surely must be welcomed.
But we can’t necessarily say that this guarantees an unprecedented diversity of works. When we see a certain kind of work, it is difficult to deny the impression that a homogenization of the screen that we must call “televisionesque” is threatening film. We can’t help but feel misgivings about the loss of notions of time and space that are specific to the cinema. Despite this, for those of us on this jury it was our great fortune to be able to experience valuable works that gave us a glimpse of the possibilities of twenty-first century cinema, those such as FENGMING A Chinese Memoir from Wang Bing, the director who astonished us four years ago with Tie Xi Qu: West of Tracks.
Even before defining documentary film, the YIDFF has thrust the question of what film itself is at filmmakers and spectators alike, as the roster of previous prizewinners reveals. Films cannot definitively be divided into “fiction” and “documentary”—the border between the two categories is forever wavering ever so slightly. Whether cinematic works are documentary or fiction, what is important to them is not how the filmmakers show us their subject matter, but the worldview they reveal through training their cameras on their subjects. We are drawn by the question of how they see the world and not by the techniques through which they show the world. From the beginnings of the festival, Yamagata has provided a great number of people with a place in which questions of how we view the world mingle in profusion. For that reason, this invaluable experience has been emblemized by the greeting now heard around the world, “Let’s meet again in Yamagata!”
This proud greeting, “Let’s meet again in Yamagata!” must not be silenced, even temporarily. Let them remain on the lips of the members of the NPO that has taken over responsibility for the festival, of the people of Yamagata City and Yamagata Prefecture that support it, of the filmmakers and guests who have come to this area from across Japan and from every corner of the globe. I am confident that many of the people here today carry with them that determination.
The Robert and Frances Flaherty Prize (The Grand Prize)
FENGMING A Chinese Memoir- CHINA / 2007 / Chinese / Color / Video / 183 min
Dir: Wang Bing
The jury decided unanimously to give this prize to Wang Bing’s deeply felt portrait of an outstanding woman, which creates an unforgettable moment in cinema.
The Mayor’s Prize (Prize of Excellence)
Encounters- PORTUGAL, FRANCE / 2006 / Portuguese / Color, B&W / Video / 105 min
Dir: Pierre-Marie Goulet
The jury decided to give this prize to Pierre-Marie Goulet for sharing with us a precious document that brings back a tradition of popular songs and poems in a delicate and tender manner.
Runner-up Prize
Potosi, the Journey- ISRAEL, FRANCE / 2007 / English, Spanish, Hebrew / Color, B&W / 35mm / 246 min
Dir: Ron Havilio
This film not only reveals complex family dynamics but also reframes the responsibility of documentarists toward their subjects. The process of preserving memory in images becomes a process of preserving the family.
Runner-up Prize
M- ARGENTINA / 2007 / Spanish / Color, B&W / 35mm / 150 min
Dir: Nicolás Prividera
The film is not only a moving quest for the director but also a powerful essay on Argentina’s recent tragic history.
Special Prize
Tarachime birth/mother- JAPAN / 2006 / Japanese / Color / Video / 39 min
Dir: Kawase Naomi
The jury decided to award the Special Prize to Tarachime, which depicts with surprising violence and tenderness the eternal flow of life.
New Asian Currents Awards
Jury: Byun Young-joo, Nakazato Isao
General Comment
The films screened at New Asian Currents sensitively depict the diverse realities of contemporary Asia from various points of view ranging from the most personal films to those dealing with environmental, class, and ethnic issues. Our work as jurors started with a discussion of the spirit of the director Ogawa Shinsuke. To us that spirit is essential to the present era, and we have supported works that resonate with his spirit.
Ogawa Shinsuke Prize
Bingai- CHINA / 2007 / Chinese / Color / Video / 114 min
Dir: Feng Yan
This is a film that gently portrays Bingai, a friend of the director and the subject of the film. It reminded us of a fundamental power of documentary filmmaking, the power to heal. We believe that this film is an example that follows the best advice offered to young filmmakers by the director Ogawa Shinsuke, the name behind this award.
Award of Excellence
The Drown Sea- INDONESIA / 2006 / Indonesian, Sundanese, Javanese / Color, B&W / Video / 94 min
Dir: Yuslam Fikri Anshari (Yufik)
When a sea that has enriched people’s lives turns into land, it brings serious changes to their way of life. Not only do they have to give up fishing, they are faced with new challenges posed by newly formed forests and arable land. The film meticulously depicts the contradictions and struggles faced by the people of Kampung Laut, Indonesia. The drowning sea is a reality suffered by the people of Kampung Laut, and a message that is being signaled to today’s world as well. It is a film that offers much encouragement for participatory filmmaking, which actively involves people in the production process.
Award of Excellence
Back Drop Kurdistan- JAPAN, TURKEY, NEW ZEALAND / 2007 / Japanese, Turkish, English / Color / Video / 110 min
Dir: Nomoto Masaru
It is not difficult to be interested in the Kurds. It is not difficult to be interested in refugees, either. But the director, Nomoto, is examining himself as a Japanese through his gaze at a family of Kurdish refugees. That is the virtue of this film that we appreciate most fervently.
Special Mention
Somewhere over the Cloud- TAIWAN / 2007 / Chinese, French / Color / Video / 102 min
Dir: Hsiao Mei-ling
The Internet has truly become an integral part of our daily lives. The dialogue between the father and daughter over the Internet in this film is a reality we are already faced with. To what level do the virtual dialogues take their relationship? We are forced to ask a fundamental question about the act of filming when we watch the final scene, with the daughter refusing the father, and the father, the director’s husband, firing questions into the camera. Against the backdrop of the political situation of Taiwan, this work poses questions about identities and family ties affected by nations, national boundaries, cultures, and politics.
Citizens’ Prizes
- Mr. Pilipenko and His Submarine
- GERMANY / 2006 / Russian, Ukrainian / Color / Video / 90 min
Dir: Jan Hinrik Drevs, René Harder
Back Drop Kurdistan- JAPAN, TURKEY, NEW ZEALAND / 2007 / Japanese, Turkish, English / Color / Video / 110 min
Dir: Nomoto Masaru