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On the second and fourth Fridays of each month the YIDFF Organizing Committee holds screenings of films which are not shown at commercial theaters, such as documentary films including the Film Library Collection films, pre-war Japanese films, masterpieces, independent works, experimental films, and animation at the 40-seat theater. Tomonokai (support) members can join the Friday Theater for free (membership fee is 1,000 yen for six months). Anyone is welcome to join the Tomonokai.

The YAMAGATA Documentary Film Library Friday Theater

In Remembrance of Director Yanagisawa Hisao
• June 11 (Friday) 14:00, 18:30 (program screens twice) *No English subtitles

Our Newspaper (“Watashitachi no shinbun”)
Yanagisawa Hisao / JAPAN / 1951 / 21 min
Night and Morning Inside Myself (“Boku no naka no yoru to asa”)
Yanagisawa Hisao / JAPAN / 1971 / 100 min

Remembering director Yanagisawa Hisao, who died on June 16th, 1999 at the age of 83. A participant in the YIDFF since the first festival and juror for the Asia Program in 1993, Yanagisawa was for many years involved in making promotional films for corporations, but also produced many independent works focusing on welfare from the late 1960s. In Night and Morning Inside Myself, he closely examines the plight of children afflicted with progressive muscular atrophy at Nishitaga Hospital in Miyagi. This will be screened together with Our Newspaper, one of his early short works.

YIDFF 2003 Encore Screenings Part 9
• June 25 (Friday) 14:00, 18:30 (program screens twice)

Three-Five People
Li Lin / CHINA, USA / 2001 / 85 min / FIPRESCI Prize
Hard Good Life
Hsu Hui-ju / TAIWAN / 2003 / 43 min / New Asian Currents Award of Excellence

Presenting two highly-praised works by women filmmakers from YIDFF 2003’s New Asian Currents program: Three-Five People, which looks at a 12-year-old boy and his friends who steal to buy heroin on the streets of Chengdu in China’s Sichuan province; and Hard Good Life, a daughter’s study of the everyday life of her father who lives alone. Jury comments

Higuchi Genichiro: Early Works
• July 9 (Friday) 14:00, 18:30 (program screens twice) *No English subtitles

Money and Us (“Okane to watashitachi”)
Higuchi Genichiro / JAPAN / 1956 / 27 min
Camera and Shutter (“Kamera to shatta”)
Higuchi Genichiro / JAPAN / 1960 / 23 min
Thinking of Tomorrow (“Ashita o kangaeru”)
Higuchi Genichiro / JAPAN / 1961 / 33 min
Secret in the Hive (“Joobachi no shinpi”)
Higuchi Genichiro / JAPAN / 1962 / 33 min

A collection of the early films of documentarist Higuchi Genichiro, born in 1906 in Tendo City, Yamagata, who has continued to present vital new works such as The Life History of Myxomycota (“Shinseinenkin no seikatsushi,” 1997) The World of Fungi (“Kinoko no sekai,” 2001) even in his nineties. His ground-breaking masterpiece The Secrets of the Queen Bee (“Joobachi no shinpi”), which delves into the mysteries of matriarchal bee society through the stoic eyes of a scientist and gained accolades both at home and abroad, will be featured with three more of his films.

YIDFF 2003 Encore Screenings Part 10
• July 23 (Friday) 14:00, 18:30 (program screens twice)

Hunting Down an Angel or Four Passions of the Soothsayer Poet
Andrey Osipov / RUSSIA / 2002 / 56 min
Fuente Álamo—The Caress of Time
Pablo García / SPAIN / 2001 / 72 min

Hunting Down an Angel or Four Passions of the Soothsayer Poet, a look at the life of Russian poet Andrey Belyi through an experimental approach; and Fuente Álamo—The Caress of Time, a sun-drenched day spent in the little Spanish village of Fuente Alamo. A double feature of works from YIDFF 2003’s International Competition.

[Venue] The YAMAGATA Documentary Film Library (Yamagata Big Wing 3F)
[Admission] Free for Tomonokai members. (Membership fee: 1,000 yen for six months)
[Contact] phone: 023-666-4480 (Yamagata office)