japanese

Yamagata Rough Cut!


We won’t be screening completed works in this program. Rather, we will be presenting five “rough cuts” that are still in the process of shooting and editing, and encouraging exchange and public debate between their filmmakers and the audience. This isn’t a space for fund-raising pitches or production coaching. Our goal is to transcend the frames of “artist” and “audience” to watch, feel, discuss and learn about moving images that are now in development. While encountering various viewpoints, we will attempt to richly explore these rough cuts, to break free of the dichotomy of “making film” and “watching film.”

Venue: Yamagata Museum of Art 5


Survival Confirmation
Dir: Takahashi Ryosuke
“Go check on your grandpa and grandma. See if they’re still alive.” My father would say these words every time I departed from our home in Tokyo. Ever since I entered university, I would travel alone to Miyako City in Iwate Prefecture during my summer vacation, to visit the home of my grandparents and record their everyday lives. This project has been going on for four years.
voyage
Dir: Ikeda Sho
A record of the Bakurocho Band’s tour in New York City. A conversation about future, between a band member and his wife, who awaits the birth of their child. A fictional sequence of a man and a woman’s final days living together. What kinds of horizons will emerge as these three different stories intertwine?
Moon in the Evening
Dir: Tanaka Kei
A housing complex in Kawasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture, whose residents are all elderly people who live alone. The unknown lives of the people who reside there. This film fixes its gaze on women and men who live by themselves, who do not feel sorrow nor hatred in the face of the death that awaits them, seeing death instead as a condition for life.
Water and the Island
Dir: Matsubayashi Yoju
The mountains of verdant Hachijo Island. Plans have been announced to construct a waste disposal site close to the source of one it its rivers. Fear of water contamination inspires local citizens to organize a resistance movement. The economic problems of an island that has no choice but to depend on public works projects. The complicated interpersonal relationships of the region. How will this film look upon the reality of this wavering island?
Fontanges
Dir: Abe Masako
Fontanges, a small village of around 200 people in the Auvergne region of France. As the director continues to record the village during her visits, she encountered images of the village that had been taken over 30 years ago. The atmosphere, memories, seasons, and labor of a village whose is population is dwindling. This project is an attempt to capture things that fade away and change, starting with the small tasks of everyday life.