japanese
YIDFF Network Special Screenings
  • Hijiori, Cure Resort
  • Seeing
  • Hijiori, Cure Resort

    (“Yunosato Hijiori—Gakko no aru saigo no ichinen”)

    - JAPAN / 2009 / Japanese / Color / Video / 76 min

    Director: Watanabe Satoshi
    Photography: Hotta Yasuhiro, JSC
    Narrative Structure, Editing: Nabeshima Jun
    Sound: Kubota Yukio
    Narrator: Ito Soichi
    Music: Sonoda Yoshinobu
    Original Music: “Kashin,” composed by Kaneko Toshiro
    Producer: Iizuka Toshio
    Cooperation with: Nakano Rie
    Production Company, World Sales: AMUR+Pandora
    hijiorieiga.blog.shinobi.jp

    Because of rationalization and the drop in the Japanese birthrate, many schools have been forced to close or to be consolidated with other schools. Elementary and middle schools have also been closed at the Hijiori hot spring, a famous therapeutic spa in northeastern Japan. Still, many visitors return to Hijiori and enjoy bathing as they did in the past. The spa is sustained by the efforts of the local people to protect the baths and by the proximity of the holy Mt. Gassan. At a time when regional culture is becoming increasingly homogenized, I examine and reconsider regional revitalization by looking at everyday life at the spa.


    - Watanabe Satoshi

    Born in 1981 in Tsuruoka, Yamagata Prefecture. While studying at Tohoku University of Art & Design, he worked on filming the folk culture of northeastern Japan. After graduation, he studied at the Image Forum film school and later under director Iizuka Toshio. He edited and did cinematography on Iizuka’s An Die Freude (2006) and cinematography for A Movie Capital Again (2007).