This legendary film became even more meaningful this year - after the mega-radiation leakage followed by the 3.11.disaster and the death of Yoshiko Tanaka, the actress who played the protagonist in this film. With the tribute to her life and the people described in the film, and also with the sense of warning to what's going on in the current Japan in mind, we will show it again. Hirosuke [Read more...]
”The Cats of Mirikitani”『ミリキタニの猫』by Linda Hattendorf 74 min U.S.A. Eighty-year-old Jimmy Mirikitani survived the trauma of WWII internment camps, Hiroshima, and homelessness by creating art. But when 9/11 threatens his life on the New York City streets and a local filmmaker brings him to her home, the two embark on a journey to confront Jimmy's painful past. An intimate exploration of the [Read more...]
KURAYOSHI, 2010, 24 min, color In this work, Tomomichi Nakamura, an Okayama native painter and animator, departs from his signature animation style as seen in his previous works such as "Ant" and "My Town," and explores a new path using the "real" images. Synopsis Nakamura stayed in Kurayoshi, a typical unspectacular provincial city of Japan, for a week, and assembled all kinds of images [Read more...]
Onkalo (Finnish for "hiding place") is under construction: it's a cavernous world of tunnels and corridors, a permanent storage facility for nuclear waste, meant to last 100,000 years (that's 20 times as long as the pyramids have so far). Conceptual artist Michael Madsen's film is a creepy, eerily elegant meditation on human folly, punctuated by philosophical and historical references, [Read more...]
2008, 19 min. Synopsis: This film is an elegy to the youth of the whole generation born in the 1970s ...Ten years after graduation, four collage classmates who live far apart are reunited. (Old lovers played by Guo Xio Dong and Zhao Tao; Wang Wei and Hao Lei.) They have not drifted apart with the passage of time, nor do they feel so. New arguments begin on the same topics they argued about [Read more...]
UPAF 2011 Film#3 (short program): “Solitary Life of Cranes” by Eva Weber, 2008, documentary, HD, 27min. Part city symphony part visual poem, ‘The Solitary Life of Cranes’ explores the invisible life of a city, its patterns and hidden secrets, seen through the eyes of crane drivers working high above its streets. Within the loose structure of a day, starting with the drivers [Read more...]
Topo Gigio is Dead Dir.: David Miranda (Narrative, Chile/USA, 23 min, 2011, HD4k/16 mm, 1:85, Color, Dolby 5.1) Synopsis: Two Chileans meet in Philadelphia: Daniela is the daughter of a former political prisoner; Tomás is the son of the physician that tortured Daniela’s father. Contemplating revenge, she discloses all about Tomas' father's dark past opening a Pandora's box. Director's [Read more...]
A Girl Like Me explores the standards of beauty imposed on today's black girls. The film delves beneath the surface in order to show how such standards affect self-esteem and self-image. This short documentary has touched the hearts and minds of millions worldwide and serves as a wake up call for us all. Shown in Tribeca FF, Silverdocs, Oprah Winfrey Show, etc. Director's bio: Kiri Davis [Read more...]
Mirage Dir. Srđan Keča, 2011, 42 mins , HDCAM, 16:9, Colour, Dolby Surround Synopsis: At the edge of a city growing from the desert, a man plays alone on a golf course. Another, sleepless, sends a letter from a labour camp to his wife in Kenya. A sand storm hits a construction site, and the locals hold a strange dance ceremony. Dubai, usually seen either as miracle of development or failed [Read more...]
“Ten years” 2007, 8 min, color Synopsis A train traverses spring and summer, and it also passes through the realest city, field and land in China; the faces of passengers are the most ordinary faces in China. Two women meet each other on the train every day, but they never converse. At the time of the SARS, they sit together and look at each [Read more...]