Japanese

Madeleine Dreams

(Chikori no sora to madeleine)

- JAPAN / 2021 / Japanese / Color / Digital File / 112 min

Director, Photography, Editing: Agatsuma Kazuki
Production Support: Sato Yumi
Music: Sato Maki
Narration: MIHO
Production Company, World Sales: Peace Tree Products

Minamisanriku, Miyagi Prefecture, one year after the 2011 disaster. One boarding house remains in the stricken town. Wanting to raise people’s spirits with his sweets, a patissier there picks himself up and resumes baking. The film follows the relationships between him and the volunteers who, sharing his dream, come together to help the town recover. The filmmaker, continuing filming in Minamisanriku, closely documents five months of confronting and being bewildered by complicated feelings, memories, and unhealing wounds on the heart born out of the nature of becoming “victims” supporting and supported by others.


Agatsuma Kazuki

Born 1985 in Shiroishi, Miyagi Prefecture. Directed The People Living in Hadenya (2014, PFF Award 2014, Japan Film Pen Club Award, YIDFF 2017) and Tremorings of Hope (2017, YIDFF 2017).




Four Perspectives: A Decade After 3.11

(Junengo no manazashi)

- JAPAN / 2021 / Japanese / Color / Digital File / 82 min (Omnibus)

Directors: Murakami Hiroyasu (A Walk in Winter), Yamada Toru (Ambiguous Loss), Agatsuma Kazuki (Even A Little Help Counts), Kaiko Kiichi (The Sea and Lime)
Production and Source: Miyagi Cinema Cradle

With the aim of “creating an opportunity to think about the ten years since the earthquake with the people of Miyagi Prefecture,” four members of “Miyagi Cinema Cradle” project made this omnibus Four Perspectives: A Decade After 3.11 consisting of four works. A Walk in Winter depicts a moment with the director’s father-in-law, who lives in Otsuchi town. Ambiguous Loss is the story of an elderly mother’s feelings for their house in a difficult-to-return area and her son and his wife, while Even A Little Help Counts shows the life of a man who works as a volunteer, and The Sea and Lime is about how people in an area affected by the disaster have remained protected by walls covered in lime made using a time-honored method.


Miyagi Cinema Cradle

This project is designed to expand the collaborative network between moving image creators based in Miyagi Prefecture and local citizens interested in their activities. They hold an irregularly-scheduled “Video Salon” to think about society and people’s way of life through moving images.