[2000]

ON

Director: MAEDA Shinjiro

2000 No dialogue Subtitled in - Color Video 72 min

Production Company: SOLCHORD cos TONE
Producer: SANADA Misao
Photography: MAEDA Shinjiro, KIMURA Takashi
Editing: MAEDA Shinjiro, KIMURA Takashi
Music:
Sound: MAEDA Shinjiro 		  International Sales: Sol Chord cos Tone
2-30-202B Kusegawa-machi, Ogaki-shi, Gifu 503-0974 JAPAN
Phone: 81-3-5766-0114
Fax: 81-3-5466-0054
E-mail: info@imageforum.co.jp

[Festivals and prizes] Hong Kong IFF 2000, Image Forum Festival 2000, Arsenal Japanese Independents in Germany

[Synopsis] Sparkling light, poignant sounds—an artist’s endeavor to capture a moment of presence.
“On,” meaning “sound” in Japanese, can also mean “existence.” Taking full advantage of digital editing, ON seamlessly merges sensual images and sounds to define a page in the lives of a group of young people. Rays of natural light, quavering voices in song, earnest faces, the darkness inside parked cars, the crackling of a rice ball wrapper, a DJ’s swinging body. Without any heroes / heroines or dialogue, the filmmaker uses a structure of meticulous staging to document a session of their life. The work pays tribute to a sensitive gaze at the mystery and sacredness of “existence.” In that sense it is sumptuously cinematic without being dramatic in a theatrical way.


MAEDA Shinjiro

Born in 1969. Film and video artist. Much of his video work, screened in Japan and abroad, interrogate the theme “seeing.” Teaches at the International Academy of Media Arts and Sciences (IAMAS) in Gifu. Before that, worked in film production at the Yellow Two Company. Films include L (95), Braille (96) and The King’s Children (98). ON is his first feature-length work.

• MAEDA Shinjiro | Inoue Shinta Project of Shepherd 1999 | ON | “hibi” 13 full moons