311
- JAPAN / 2011 / Japanese / English subtitles / 105 min
Directors: Mori Tatsuya, Watai Takeharu, Matsubayashi Yoju, Yasuoka Takaharu
Two weeks after the earthquake, four documentary filmmakers including Mori Tatsuya headed for the disaster area. No one thought that the trip would result in a film. Their only intention was to be eyewitnesses to the disaster.
Fukushima: Memories of the Lost Landscape
(Soma kanka —dai 1 bu ubawareta tochi no kioku—)- JAPAN / 2011 / Japanese / English subtitles / 111 min
Director: Matsubayashi Yoju
“Memories of the land stolen by the nuclear accident. If this uninhabited time, a time without people, continues, then not only the culture, but the very language to describe the local area will be forgotten. Before that could happen, I decided to make this film so that, come what may, there would be a record of the terrible spectacle.”
My Camera and Tsunami
- INDIA / 2011 / English, Tamil, Bengali / Japanese subtitles / 90 min
Director, Photography, Editing: R.V. Ramani
Indian filmmaker R. V. Ramani, who visited Yamagata with his film Nee Engey—Where Are You (YIDFF 2003), almost lost his life in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The video camera he clutched as he nearly drowned was totally damaged, but images remained of the special moments he shot over a period of four years. It is a memory of time, recorded by a machine.
Kenojiru
(Kenojiru)- JAPAN / 2011 / Japanese / English subtitles / 33 min
Director: Chimura Toshimitsu
The charms of a gradually vanishing regional Japanese culture, portrayed through “kenojiru,” an example of the local cuisine of the Tsugaru region. Hailing the Tohoku region through a film that has been brought from the Aomori Film Festival.
Hurray! Hurray! Yamada: The Cheerleading Club of the Hosei
(Fure fure Yamada—wasurenai tame no eizo kiroku)- JAPAN / 2011 / Japanese / English subtitles / 45 min
Director: Miki Shigenori
A documentary record of the activities of the Hosei University cheerleading squad at Town of Yamada in the disaster area. Made of three parts: “The Cheerleading Club of the Hosei” (20 minutes), “What They Thought” (10 minutes), “The Summer of Yamada” (15 minutes).
Tohoku University of Art & Design 3.11 Project
- JAPAN / 2011 / Japanese / Approx. 30 min
Responding to the call of school president Negishi Kichitaro, nine students each made a short dramatic film lasting three minutes and eleven seconds. How will the younger generation confront the disaster?
Never Give Up Concert
Made by a student of Tohoku University of Art and Design
(Makenai taoru fukko konsato)- JAPAN / 2011 / Japanese / 17 min
Director: Oka Tatsuya
Documentary about putting on a music concert with disaster victims who have been evacuated to a refugee center in Mogami-machi, Yamagata Prefecture.
Interview
Namako Onna
Made by a student of Tohoku University of Art and Design
- JAPAN / 2011 / Japanese / 30 min
Directors: Kato Takuto, Nosaka Nozomi
A portrait of a woman recovering from the wounds of an unrequited love, like a sea cucumber that survives by dissolving the structure of its body and then reforming. Recovery from the earthquake disaster is an underlying theme.
The Future for Children in Fukushima
(Kodomo no mirai in Fukushima)- JAPAN / 2011 / Japanese / English subtitles / 3 min
Director: Hiroki Ryuichi
A three-minute short into which film director Hiroki Ryuichi puts his feelings for the children who live in Fukushima, where the director was born.
Nanyadoyara —Songs for the Dead and Alive—
(Nanyadoyara —rikuchu okonai no bon uta—)- JAPAN / 2011 / Japanese / 60 min
Director: Hirata Junko
A film about the ways of life of the fishing villages and the summer festival songs of Rikuchu Okonai, Iwate Prefecture, an area beloved of Japanese ethnologist Yanagita Kunio. And then came March 11.