Author: moie
TEEN UPAF
This year’s Teen UPAF streams four powerful videos made by teenagers in New York City during the COVID-19 Lockdown. All in English (with some Spanish) with Japanese caption subtitles. This program is free of charge and is available on both Vimeo and YouTube. Read on to learn about the films and young filmmakers.
Tribute to Mel Baggs
Mel Baggs, a legendary autistic blogger and artist passed away at the age of 39 on April 11. 2020. I learned about Mel’s video “In My Language” 2 years ago from my former student now colleague Jordan Lord’s article which they wrote for my Third Cinema class at Hunter College. When I was looking for work for this edition of Uno Port Art Films, I remember how powerful it was and wondered if we could [Read more...]
Island Soldier
The untold story of Micronesian citizens fighting America’s wars at staggeringly high rates per capita. Told through the intimate personal odyssey of the Nenas, a family strives for their piece of the “American Dream”, and deals with the consequences of military service against the backdrop of a pristine Pacific island on the brink of economic collapse. Director & Cinematographer: Nathan [Read more...]
Love and Wolbachia
A new film by young Japanese documentarist Sayaka Ono (a disciple of the legendary Kazuo Hara), whose debut feature and self-documentary “The Duckling” made a sensation in Japanese doc world (screened at UPAF 2011). Love and Walbachia is a tapestry of lives and feelings of love of various sexual minorities - intersex, transgender, lesbian, and transvestite people in Japan, shot from a sensitive [Read more...]
Long Vacation in BK
Long Vacation In BK is a 26-minute diary. It is an ode to Taiwan and Asia written while I live in Brooklyn. The film opens with the news of a controversial and renowned Chinese photographer Ren Hang’s suicide, which drives me into my memories of my past life in Asia. During 2007-2017, I, myself, a female, me and my avatars, were traveling and searching, escaping from my family. Traveling the [Read more...]
It’s Easier to Raise Cattle / Lagi Senang Jaga Sekandang Lembu
Two teenage outcasts form an uncanny friendship in their remote village. As one discovers the other’s dark secrets, she observes the changes in her new friend to the point of violence, monstrosity and affection. Screened in competitions at Venice International Film Festival, Milano Film Festival, Singapore International Film Festival, among many others. Director: Amanda Nell Eu. Produced by Gan [Read more...]
Death of the Sound Man/Awasarn sound man
(This film can be only screened at the Okayama venue.) Voice of the people are often neglected, same as sound in film that audience don’t care. Two sound recordists are working on final mix of a short film. Will their sound be heard by someone? World premiered at Venice Film Festival, then screened at International Film Festival Rotterdam, Busan International Film Festival, and won Special [Read more...]
EGO / Эго
(This film will be screened at Tokyo Venue only.) It's said that all desires and fears arise specifically in the ego. The film is about the relationship of man and woman. But this is only an illusion, imagination, which arose in the mind like a dream. And there is nothing real in this, as ego a man. A surreal drama by a young and promised female director from Kazakhstan. Japan [Read more...]
The Amorous Indies / Les Indes gallants
Les Indes Galantes (The amorous indies), is an opera-ballet created by Jean Philippe Rameau in 1735. He was inspired for one of the dance by tribal Indian dances of Illinois performed by Michigamea chiefs, in Paris in 1725. Clément Cogitore adapts a short part of the ballet by mobilizing a group of Krump dancers, an art form born in Los Angeles black ghetto in the 1990s. Its birth occurred in [Read more...]