Perspectives Japan
• October 8–10
Perspectives Japan introduces films that depict issues related to Japan from unique perspectives. The five titles in this program include: a film that details the dangers of state power run amok, a film that weaves together memories of protest against the authorities in the 1960s, a film that crystallizes a decade of filmmakers’ contemplation since the earthquake and tsunami, a film that explores physical disability and modes of expression through filmmaking, and a film that listens carefully to personal memories rooted in the land. These works trace each filmmaker’s unceasing vision, which cannot be summed up simply by the word “Japan.”
- Ushiku
- JAPAN / 2021 / 87 min
Director: Thomas Ash
Based on interviews with foreign nationals detained for long periods of time at the immigration center in Ushiku city, Ibaraki prefecture, this film reveals the violation of human rights by the authorities. This is work of watchdog journalism that sounds the alarm about state power run amok.
• Oct. 9 14:00
- Whiplash of the Dead
- JAPAN / 2021 / 200 min
Director: Daishima Haruhiko
Weaving together the memories of a university student who lost his life in the First Haneda Struggle in 1967 through the words of his bereaved family and ex-classmates, this film turns the memories of those who protested against government power into questions for the future.
• Oct. 8 18:00
- BETWEEN YESTERDAY & TOMORROW Omnibus 2011/2016/2021
- JAPAN / 2021 / 64 min
Producer: Maeda Shinjiro
Directors: Ikeda Yasunori, Oki Hiroyuki, Suzuki Hikaru, Takashi Toshiko
An omnibus of 12 short films by four filmmakers who followed the instructions of the project to re ect on their daily lives, going back and forth between yesterday and tomorrow. A trail of contemplation spanning ten years since the Great East Japan Earthquake.
• Oct. 10 15:00
- Transform!
- JAPAN / 2020 / 93 min
Director: Ishida Tomoya
The director ponders his own physical challenges while lming others. The questions, “What is the body?” and “What is expression?” lead to the question “What is film?.”
• Oct. 10 11:00
- I Remember
- JAPAN / 2021 / 224 min
Director: Hatano Shuhei
There are 10 people who face the camera and talk about their memories rooted in the soil of Tottori prefecture. The memories of their lives, from the pre-war era to the present day, mesh together to form the film.
• Oct. 9 16:30