japanese
Islands / I Lands
—Cinemas in Exile
  • The Sorceress of Dirah
  • Meta Ekologi
  • Foreign Sky
  • each film . . . an island?
  • Accentuation
  • The Place Where I Live—and touch me
  • Reflection
  • Amami Film: In Memory of Miho-san
  • dolce . . .
  • Puppet Shaman Star
  • Promised Paradise
  • Order
  • Life on Distant Islands
  • The Struggle Against Endemic Diseases
  • At the End of the Arc: Yaeyama Islands
  • Theresa Hak Kyung Cha
  • Maria Rosalie Zerrudo
    		•

    dolce . . .

    НЕЖНО
    - JAPAN, RUSSIA / 1999 / Japanese, Russian / Color / Video / 63 min

    Director: Alexander Sokurov
    Photography: Otsu Koshiro
    Editing: Aleksei Yankovsky, Sergei Ivanov
    Sound: Miya Kosei
    Sound Editing: Sergei Moshikov
    Producer: Kogure Yuji (Quest)
    Cast: Shimao Miho, Shimao Maya, Shimao Toshio
    Production Companies: Quest, Studio Bereg
    World Sales: Ideale Audience Internationa www.ideale-audience.com

    A full moon shines over the ocean on Kakeroma Island. Waves dissipate on the other side of the paper screen door. Leaning against a wall, Miho starts to whisper. About her mother and father, her conflicted love with Toshio, and death. Questions about the self, love for her daughter Maya. Miho talks about her memories in tears and hums an old folk song. Giving herself over to Sokurov’s direction, the writer Shimao Miho from Amami plays herself. Bitter memories with a hint of sweet fragrance drift over the island.


    - Alexander Sokurov

    Born in 1951 in Irkutsk Oblast, Russia. Because of his father’s job in the military, he spent his youth in other countries, such as Turkmenistan and Poland. He graduated from Gorky University and the All-Union Cinematography Institute (VGIK), and then worked at Leningrad Documentary Film Studio and Lenfilm. Most of his films were banned by the authorities until 1987. He has since continued to work energetically, producing a steady stream of controversial films. He shoots both documentary and fiction, and has released more than 30 films. He is deeply interested in Japan, and produced a Japan Trilogy—Oriental Elegy, A Humble Life, and dolce . . . . Elegy from Russia was screened at YIDFF ’93.