japanese
New Docs Japan
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  • Ghada: Songs of Palestine
  • People Crossing the River
  • A Permanent Part-timer in Distress
  • The Women the War Left Behind
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    A Permanent Part-timer in Distress

    (“Sonan furiitaa”)
    - JAPAN / 2007 / Japanese / Color / Video / 67 min / Subtitled in English

    Director, Photography, Editing, Sound: Iwabuchi Hiroki
    Advisor: Amamiya Karin
    Producer: Tsuchiya Yutaka
    World Sales: W-TV OFFICE

    The director, twenty-three-year-old Iwabuchi Hiroki, is a permanent part-timer who on weekdays does menial work at a factory for 1,250 yen an hour, and on weekends takes on casual temporary work in Tokyo, a city to which he is drawn. He joins a demonstration demanding rights for permanent part-timers, and is featured on TV as “a poor, unhappy temporary worker.” Despite having made his own choice to “live as a permanent part-timer,” he says that “the days feel like drowning in shallow water.” During the diary-like documentation of his life, something changes . . .


    [Director’s Statement] This is a documentary of the year I spent doing temporary work from April 2006 to March 2007. The film documents days spent thinking about whether there was any value in the life of “permanent part-timers,” labeled as losers and slaves, and wondering how long this would last. I hope the audience perceives the doggedness of one person reflected in the film.


    - Iwabuchi Hiroki

    Born in 1983, Iwabuchi started making video films after entering Tohoku University of Art & Design in 2001. He graduated in 2005, and is currently a permanent part-timer. About a Life was selected for the 2004 Short Shorts Film Festival Asia. He was one of the producers of Beyond Borders, a film produced for a workshop at the National Cultural Festival’s “Yamagata 2003” Documentary Festival.