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
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    Puppet Shaman Star

    - JAPAN / 2008 / Japanese / Color / Video / 34 min

    Director, Photographs: Takamine Go
    Assistant Director: Yamaguchi Takahisa
    Photography: Mori Takuma
    Editing: Takagi Shunichi
    Producer: Shiroma Satomi
    Appearances: Okuyama Keisuke, Takamine Go, Katchan, Hiroe
    Production Companies, Source: Okuyama Office, Shiroma Shoten, Takamine Productions

    Okuyama Keisuke is a make-up artist for traditional festivals and Japanese dance, and also a creator of puppets in a style with ancient roots. He travels to Okinawa and, on its limestone beaches, frolics with his puppets, whose white skins are colorfully adorned with beads and artificial flowers. The camera embraces the puppets’ body parts and captures the Eros they arouse. The wind through the rocky hollows whispers with the cries of spirits (mabui).


    [Director’s Statement] The documentary on the make-up artist and puppet master Okuyama Keisuke is the third in a series on “my favorite people,” after films on Kadekaru Rinsho and Oshiro Misako. Okuyama’s appeal can be explained by the inner fermentation and sublimation of Eros and Thanatos. Secular and alien worlds coexist with ease in his puppets, such as the sacred phallic-Kannon or the charming butt-faced skull. Okuyama’s face looks like a puppet these days. Or is it vice versa?


    - Takamine Go

    Born in 1948 in Kabira on Ishigaki Island in Okinawa. Lived in Naha through high school. Entered Kyoto University of Education on a national scholarship for exchange students, at which time he began shooting 8mm movies. His directorial debut was Okinawan Dream Show (1974), a close look at the scenery of Okinawa around the time of its reversion to Japan. He has continued to shoot films about Okinawa. Untamagiru (1989) won a number of prizes, including the Caligari Film Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival. He served as an International Competition juror at YIDFF 2003. He is working on a new narrative film, Queer Fish Lane.