Cinema with Us 2021
• October 10–11
For the sixth festival in a row, we will offer a special program dedicated to the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami, entitled Cinema with Us. This project began out of the strong desire from the festival programmers, who knew filmmakers on the ground in the immediate aftermath of the disaster ten years ago, to “take the first step of sharing through film the ongoing situation there and beginning to foster new connections.” rough sharing time with others, we experience not only each other but the past and the present, as well as the connections among more minute memories, offering some possibility of resisting the simplification of all things, and thus speaking to the enormous role that film continues to play. The program this year will introduce four films that bring us face to face with the weight of these moments and connections.
- Madeleine Dreams
- JAPAN / 2021 / 112 min
Director: Agatsuma Kazuki
Filmed one year after the disaster in the town of Minamisanriku, Miyagi Prefecture, this documentary follows a confectioner as he begins baking again, and the volunteers who have gathered to support and share in his dream.
• Oct. 10 14:00
- Four Perspectives: A Decade After 3.11
- JAPAN / 2021 / 82 min
Directors: Murakami Hiroyasu, Yamada Toru, Agatsuma Kazuki, Kaiko Kiichi
An omnibus of work from four filmmakers of the Miyagi Cinema Cradle who wanted to “create an opportunity to think about the ten years since the disaster.” *No English subtitles
• Oct. 10 17:00
- Alone Again in Fukushima 2020
- JAPAN / 2020 / 95 min
Director: Nakamura Mayu
A sequel to Alone in Fukushima (2015), this work captures the changes to a town over eight years, beginning in 2013—the gradually thinning animal population; the steadfast Matsumura Naoto and the couple who entrusted their cows to him; the cherry blossoms in full bloom as always. *No English subtitles
• Oct. 11 15:00
- My Hometown
- JAPAN, AUSTRIA / 2015–2019 / 101 min
Director: Iwasaki Takamasa
A three-film omnibus work from filmmaker Iwasaki Takamasa (Cinema with Us, YIDFF 2015), which includes his Nature and Symptoms / From Four Poems, Memories, and Future of the Past. *Partly English subtitled
• Oct. 11 18:00