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Butoh, Okura
JAPAN / 1999 /Japanese Color / 16mm / 35 min

Director: Suzuki Toshiaki
Photography: Tokida Takashi, Matsumaru Takehiko
Script: Kitazato Uichiro
Sound: Shimizu Kyo
Music: Suzuki Haruyuki
Production Company, Source:
Omiya Visual Image Productions
502 Onishi Bldg., 5-32-6 Sendagaya
Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 151-0051
Phone: 81-3-3353-0636
Fax: 81-3-3354-1958

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Suzuki Toshiaki

After graduating Tokyo Zokei University in March 1982, worked as an assistant director for cultural/educational films and TV dramas. Freelance director from 1988. Recent works include Summer I Danced in Pusan, and The Complete Song Book of Japanese Animation both for cable.


While spending time in the city of Shinjo in Yamagata Prefecture, a producer is charm-ed by a nearby village. A filmmaker is shooting a documentary there, in Okura village. The two come together in the editing of this short film which features dancer Mori Shigeya. At first, one sees ordinary scenes of a mountain village covered in snow. But with Mori Shigeya's dance, a strange spatial dimension is created that shows the village's charm as well as providing a glimpse of a problem that Japanese villages have yet to solve. - Masuya Shuichi

Director's Statement
This is a mysterious village with a special time axis. It is steeped in pre-modern time, space and the problems of contemporary society simultaneously. Time that transcends an individual life span has accumulated on the village's bent back. The entire world seems to exist here in this village. This place causes in me a powerful awareness of the present. I am going to stay here in this village for a while, or so it seems.

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COPYRIGHT:Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival Organizing Committee