Juror
Takashi Toshiko
[Juror’s Statement]
One day, I was gazing at a distant landscape, and whispered about something I saw there, saying, “It’s just like a movie.”
How strange, I thought. There’s a movie happening here, in reality—the reality is in front of me, but it’s like a movie.
It’s so sunny outside but the cinema is pitch-black.
Movie projectors do not operate without electricity.
Cameras would just be heavy lumps of metal without a power source.
Yet, I watch movies. I wait with excitement in the darkness for a movie to start.
We can watch movies anywhere now (at home or outside) with whatever device (PC or mobile phone)—though you still need electricity.
There may be a great discovery in those small images and sounds on your device.
But, I believe in the joys and sorrows that come from watching movies, which only become tangible when you are showered with images and sounds from the big screen.
Born in Osaka. After working as an assistant director for Fukuda Katsuhiko and as director of the Tokyo International Lesbian & Gay Film Festival, she produced Ode I and Oishi Apartments, Nishi-Tengachaya (both 1998, YIDFF ’99). She received the Special Mention at Visions du Réel with Blessed (2001, YIDFF 2001). From 2005 to 2013, she has organized the screening event “Quarterly Takashi” at Gallery Maki, Tokyo. She has organized “Takashi Times” at Kobe Planet Film Archive since 2009.
InterviewItami 2009 Early Summer—Late Autumn
(Itami 2009nen shoka—banshu)
JAPAN / 2009 / Japanese / Color / HDV (SD) / 61 min
Director, Photography, Editing: Takashi Toshiko
Text: Takahashi Akiyo
Source: Takashi Toshiko
The cornerstone of Takahashi’s Itami Series, shown at the screening event “Quarterly Takashi,” held at Galary Maki from 2005 to 2013. There were 17 screenings in all. Other works from this series—which portrays the lives of local people and changes of the seasons in Itami City, Hyogo Prefecture, where the director resides—will be screened successively at Yamagata Manabikan.
Nango jazzzzzzzzz
JAPAN / 2013 / No Dialogue / Color / Blu-ray / 32 min
Director, Photography, Editing: Takashi Toshiko
Appearances: Kurosawa Mika & Dancers
Source: Takashi Toshiko
A single act from the performance “jazzzzzzzzz-dance” by Kurosawa Mika & Dancers held in Nango, Hachinohe City, Aomori Prefecture. A “z” is added to the title after each performance. Takashi Toshiko began filming the dancer Kurosawa Mika in 2011, and still recording her to date.