During the festival we will screen 29 films, most of them Japanese. We will also hold two symposiums, featuring filmmakers and people who have been taking part in reconstruction activities in the affected areas, that will be streamed across Japan and the world. After the festival, we will organize screening programs for the films so that they may be more widely seen. |
The Neighborly Tomodachi
(Sugu soba ni ita tomodachi)- JAPAN / 2011 / Japanese / English subtitles / 95 min
Director: Cecilia Ami Kitajima
March 11: 95 Burmese residents in Japan head for the disaster area to volunteer. The film shows these “neighbors” in Japan as they encounter various situations.
The Great East Japan Earthquake: A Lesson for the Next Generation
(Higashi Nihon Dai Shinsai kyokun o jisedai e)- JAPAN / 2011 / Japanese / English subtitles / 31 min
Director: Akama Shingi
So many precious lives, even the sense of “everyday life,” destroyed—the almost unacceptable reality that no one could have imagined. At that moment . . . what separated light from darkness, life from death?
Snow after the Day
(Sekkai)- JAPAN / 2011 / Japanese / 60 min
Director: Otake Akatsuki
Mogul-skiing Hatanaka Miyuki comes from Shiogama. Looting and rioting—the reality of the destruction zone that was never reported at the time. The film tours the shelters after the earthquake, encountering island fishermen and learning what it means to live on the sea . . .
Locus —Onahama 0811—
(Kiseki —Onahama 0811—)- JAPAN / 2011 / Japanese / 25 min
Director: Tomori Eitaro
Five months after the Great East Japan Earthquake. There is a plan to hold a fireworks festival, that emblem of the Japanese summer, at Onahama in the earthquake zone. Fireworks launched from the broken harbor. A rain of light falling in the midsummer night.
Lives after the Tsunami
(Otsunami no ato ni)- JAPAN / 2011 / Japanese / 73 min
Director: Morimoto Shuichi
The Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011. The last three days of a film record taken of Sendai, Higashi Matsushima, and Ishinomaki, two weeks after the earthquake. Focusing on the Okawa Elementary School in Ishinomaki, where 74 of 108 children were swallowed up by the tsunami.
Tsuchioto
(Tsuchioto)- JAPAN / 2011 / Japanese / English subtitles / 23 min
Director: Okubo Yui
A visual poem patched together from precious images from before the earthquake that were saved from the tsunami. The director made the film after visiting family members who were injured in the disaster that damaged his hometown of Otsuchi-cho, Iwate Prefecture.
March 18, 2011
- JAPAN / 2011 / Japanese, English / English subtitles / 34 min
Director: Aeneas Wilder
A journey in search of the filmmaker’s friend, who went missing after the tsunami hit the coast of Kamaishi, Iwate Prefecture, on March 11.
From a Country Struck by Twin Tragedies . . .
(Futatsu no higeki – Higashi Nihon Dai Shinsai to suro fudo undo)- JAPAN / 2011 / Japanese / 24 min
Director: Kakegawa Masayuki
“I saw the terrible scene with my own eyes and wondered what I could do to help. This film is the result of that reflection.”
What We Achieved and What We Didn’t
(Watashitachi ni dekita koto dekinakatta koto)- JAPAN / 2011 / Japanese / 30 min
Director: Okazaki Takashi
Various phenomena that have appeared in Yamagata City since the Great Earthquake, explained not by people but by means of posters and advertisements.
Interview
Great Grandfather’s Drum
- USA / 2011 / English / Japanese subtitles / 57 min
Director: Cal Lewin
Producers: Victoria Lewin, Cal Lewin
A portrait of Japanese Americans, prewar immigrants from Fukushima to Hawaii, who are preserving traditional dance, song, and taiko drumming for the next generation.