Program 3
Japanese Panorama
Included in the YIDFF since 1991, this year Japanese Panorama is presented as part of the Kokumin Bunkasai program. Despite the change in format, it continues efforts to discover new Japanese films and directors.
Don’t Push Me!—Record of a Truancy Girl
Watanabe Takashi
2002 / Video / 45 min
This film carefully documents how a girl who has stopped going to school recovers her relationships with society and people through theater. Her colleagues making plays have similar problems. At the same time, this work documents a process of exploration and confirmation by the director.
My Life Is White Rice!
- Manma Sachiko
2003 / Video / 18 min
This film comically yearns for the nostalgic grace of white rice. Rice, a symbol of Japan, has a complicated face. Why does it smell like gunpowder when you put a pickled red plum in the center of a bowl of white rice? What is Japan?!
Erotic/Girl of Worldly Desire
- Yamauchi Yoko
2002 / Video / 20 min
“I went to a temple to follow ascetic practices, so that I could see the people I really want to see.” Father complex, feelings for her mother, friendship and love. This private film describes a girl’s longing and fractured feelings in a sometimes pop, sometimes profound way.
Confession of Antonio
- Honda Soichiro
2001 / Video / 57 min
Extremely forceful from start to finish, this work inserts combative sport amid Antonio’s confessions, highlighting the static and the dynamic. Juxtaposing the bodily senses drenched with sweat and fiction, Confession of Antonio discloses the essence of the real and the documentary!?
A Sole Demonstration
- Ando Hisao
2001 / Video / 94 min
A vaudeville theater encountered during a journey of self-exploration. A space that seems caught in a time warp. Gradually he is pulled into the theater, enchanted by the varied charms of the actors and actresses, stage hands and audience.
We Were Born after the War
- Araki Masato, Mathis Neuburger
2001 / Video / 79 min
Started making this film after a German friend at the Canadian school where he was learning English asked him about the Nanking Massacre by the Japanese army. What did these youth of the West and East discover as they delved deeply into Japan, China and Germany? This work confronts questions of war, invasion and history education.
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The 18th National Cultural Festival “YAMAGATA 2003” Documentary Festival | Program 1: Documentaries from Yamagata | Program 2: Four Major Visual Creators Buck Up Yamagata! | Program 3: Japanese Panorama |