The 10th UPAF will be held online from September to Dec 2024, and in person at Lounge Kado, a small cafe in Okayama City, in Jan 2025. For the online portion, we will make 1-2 programs available for on-demand purchase for 7 days, every 3 weeks. Our festival is run by volunteers’ efforts and with small grants, so this format is an experiment for us not to burden stuff and the audience, and to be able to continue. All screenings will be with English and Japanese subtitles. For the films that we translate/subtitle, we will add the subtitles for Deaf and Hard-of-hearing.
While always cherishing our big theme “Life, Art, Film,” UPAF also sets a mini-theme each time based on what’s important in the world, and curates several films accordingly. After the pandemic, the world we live in today is wrapped in dark clouds of war and division. We have set the mini-theme of the 10th UPAF to be “Palestine” and plan to screen 5-6 films with high artistic values and strong historicities. We plan to program them in chronological order so that viewers will be able to grasp Palestine’s history since 1948. Some context explanations will be provided if desired. We want to ponder with our viewers why the US and UK continue to support Israel government’s military actions against civilians in Palestine, and how we as Japanese are related to that power map of the world. Besides that mini-theme, we want to bring films from the countries that many foreign workers in Japan are from, to help ourselves to understand our non-Japanese neighbors a bit more. We will also have the Japanese Short Film Program with the works selected from this year’s call for entries.
Please note: most of the films this year request to geo-block the online screenings to Japan only. Many of them may be available in your countries -Please check them out!
Japan Premiere! Written and directed by: Annemarie Jacir, Cinematographer: Helene Louvart, Editor: Annemarie Jacir, Panos Voutsaras, Starring: Mahmoud Asfa, Ruba Blal, Saleh Bakri. 2012, 93 min. In Arabic with English subtitles and Japanese Subtitles for Deaf and hard-of-hearing. The viewing is limited to within Japan.
Getting to Know Our Asian Neighbors Through Good Films: China Dir. Zhang Mengqi. China. 2023, 190 mins. In Mandarin with English & Japanese subtitles. Over the past thirteen years, Zhang has documented her father’s village in Hubei, China, as a repository of ancestral memory.
Director: Lyosuke SAITOH from IXI & Ray, Starring: Kazuma SATO (lead); Lyosuke SAITOH (dancer); E.watson (piano); Kenichi INOUE (drum), Producer: Da-hara, Camera: Ray, Art: Ryota ICHIKAWA, Sound: Danniel-Chan TK. Experimental, 2023, 6min. No words. Japanese SDH subtitle is available in CC.
Director: Amer Shomali & Paul Cowan, Writer: Paul Cowan, 2014, 75min. Palestine, Canada, France. Featuring Alison Darcy, Rosann Nerenberg, Holly O'Brien, Heidi Foss. In English and Arabic with English subtitles and Japanese SDH subtitles. Streaming is limited to the viewers in Japan.
Dir: Akio Fujimoto, starring: HOANG Phuong as Phuong, HUYNH Tuyet Anh as An, QUYNH Nhu as Nhu. Japan/Vietnam, Drama, 2020, 88min. In Vietnamese & Japanese with English and Japanese subtitles (not SDH). Streaming is limited to the viewers in Japan. ©2020 E.x.N K.K. / ever rolling films
Palestinian history on Cinema #1—Nakba, 1948 Online Screening #1: 9/27-10/3 Japan-only on-demand streaming (link to come). Salt of This Sea Dir. Annemarie Jacir, Drama, 2008, 105 min, In Arabic & Hebrew w/ English and Japanese subtitles. Japan Premiere! Limited to the viewers located in Japan. A sensational debut feature by the first Palestinian woman filmmaker. Official [Read more...]
Palestinian history on Cinema #2—Nakba, 1948 Online Screening #1: 9/27-10/3 Japan-only on-demand streaming. Lyd 2023, 78 min. Sci-Fi Documentary. Palestine | UK | US. Co-directors: Rami Younis & Sarah Ema Friedland. Exe. Producer: Roger Waters (Co-founder of Pink Floyd). In Arabic and Hebrew w/ En and Ja subs. Japan Premiere! Limited to the viewers located in Japan. A story of a [Read more...]