Yamagata Film Criticism Workshop
This project encourages people to read and write about the world through the lens of documentary film, while immersed in the lively atmosphere of a film festival. Professional film critics advise the participants, who write their own articles about films, to be published on a dedicated website during the festival.
Docu-Yama Live! website: Yamagata Film Criticism Workshop
Course in Japanese: Oct 6th (Fri)–10th (Tue)
Course in English: Oct 6th (Fri)–9th (Mon)
Mentor of Course in Japanese: Kitakoji Takashi
Film critic, professor at Kyoto University of the Arts. His film criticism appears in Soen and the Asahi Shimbun, among other places. Author of Wong Kar-Wai teki renai (INFAS Publications, 2005), and co-author of Edward Yang saiko/ saiken (Film Art, 2017), Apichatpong Weerasethakul hikari to kioku no artist (Film Art, 2016), Hikizuru eiga (Film Art, 2011), Zero nendai + no eiga (Kawade Shobo Shinsha, 2011), Pedro Costa tooi heya kara no koe (Sendai Mediatheque, 2007), Eiga no seijigaku (Seikyusha, 2003), Aoyama Shinji Chronicles (Little More, 2023).
Mentor of Course in English: Chris Fujiwara
Chris Fujiwara is a writer and critic. He has written and edited several books on cinema, including Jacques Tourneur: The Cinema of Nightfall (Johns Hopkins University Press); The World and Its Double: The Life and Work of Otto Preminger (Faber & Faber); and Jerry Lewis (University of Illinois Press). Formerly Artistic Director of Edinburgh International Film Festival, he has curated film programs and has served as a mentor for film criticism and film programming workshops at many film festivals and other institutions around the world.
Film Criticism Collective Books
Essays and reviews by participants and mentors in previous Yamagata Film Criticism Workshops have been published in three books. Film Criticism Collective 1 contains texts from the YIDFF 2015 workshop. Film Criticism Collective 2 contains texts from the workshop at Salamindanaw Asian Film Festival 2016 (General Santos, Philippines). Film Criticism Collective 3 contains texts from the workshops at YIDFF 2019 and Cinema Rehiyon 2020 (Naga, Philippines). All three books are in both English and Japanese and were published with the support of the Japan Foundation Asia Center. Electronic copies are available at the link below.
Download Film Criticism Collective 1 (PDF, 3.4MB) | Film Criticism Collective 2 (PDF, 3.8MB)
Film Criticism Collective 3 (PDF, 2.6MB)