This is the inaugural year for Uno Port Art Films. Let’s see what happens! The reason we have decided to do UPAF is because, as independent filmmakers living in NY for the past two decades, we know how hard it is to show the films created only through years of spending resources and energy on the projects in which you kept believing.
In order for a film to reach an audience in a faraway country, it first needs to be selected and awarded at some major international film festivals, then attract interest from a foreign distributor, and be discussed and judged based on its profitability in the target country. Only then will the selected few be shown at movie theaters or sold in the DVD market. Many only get shown in big cities like Tokyo and Kyoto. In a place like Uno, where there is no movie theatre, people have to only rely on the domestic DVD market to find good foreign films. As a result, people often only get to see commercial films. We watch many great films in NY, and very few will land in Japan. So we thought, “how about we bring them here, directly, without going through any central forces (like festivals, distributors, etc)?” There are so many meaningful and enjoyable films that never land in Japan. It’ll be good for our fellow filmmakers as well as the town people, no?
”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...]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8SVFTxWvyc Kuroi-Ame (Black Rain) 1989 "I'm not to live to die. War's continued living in my body." A Japanese legend director, Imamura Shohei, a two-time Cannne Palm d'or winner whom Martin Scorsese called "my master," created this black and white film based on a novel by Ibuse Masuji. The film draws aftermath of the Hiroshima atomic bomb [Read more...]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPiyO3b3N6w Synopsis Teijun Ogawa, a proud and rare niso (female priest) of Japanese Shingon Buddhist Sect, dies after telling her story to Reiko and Max, a Japanese couple based in New York. She told them about her desolate life since she was given to a temple at the age of seven, and her achievement of building the Enmyoin temple (transferred from Naoshima [Read more...]
Two animated films by an animator Tomomichi Nakamura from Akaiwa city, Okayama. His works have been invited to Vancouver International FF, Calgary Int'l FF, and shown at The International Short Film Festival Oberhausen. An intense interest of the world is on this emerging Okayama native animation artist. Image Forum Film Festival 2007 Vancouver International Film Festival 2007 Apocalyptic [Read more...]
Internationally acclaimed photographer, artist, documentary filmmaker, Akram Zaatari from Beirut, Lebanon. Growing up in a war-zone in the Middle east, being identified as an Arab artist, he has established his unique poetic photography and documentary work style. His works have exhibited MoMA in New York and other museums around the world. He is a founding member of the Arab Image Foundation for [Read more...]
ニューヨークで創られた学生達の秀作映画セクション。今回は大学生、高校生、そして中学生の作品もお届けします。 渋谷アップリンクのウェブ・マガジンの記事（by タハラレイコ） アドビ財団の主催するAdobe Youth Voices program から "Problem Kidz" by Katia Skinner, Tyrone Davis, Elizabeth Fohsta-Lynch, Xavier Rice, Sheyenne DeRochea, and Christine Zeigler. A rap music video. "Love Isn't Supposed to Hurt" by Jared Cato, Andrew Gatling, Sheliya Parson, & Sydney Terry. [Read more...]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnKKgYD5m-U The Story of New Town (103 min, 2003) by Honda Takayoshi Around 1970's, in the Japan's high economic growth era, numerous new-towns (industrial towns) were born everywhere in Japan. Sanyo-Danchi in Okayama where the director Honda grew up was one of them. Ending the rapid growth which brought the people into the town with a full of hope for the [Read more...]
Rapresent - This film is the portrait of Bojan, a young man with a passion for graffiti and hiphop. Bojan was born in Split, Croatia. He lost his father during the civil war and escaped with his mother and sister to Serbia. When he was 11 his mother died and he was put in an orphanage. At age 18, according to Serbian laws, he lost the right to accommodation in the House and he became homeless. [Read more...]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66fTtqgL2kI The New God Director: Yutaka Tsuchiya 1999 99 min. Karin Amamiya has become a counter-culture icon in Japan, but she started out as the lead singer of the ultra-right wing punk band The Revolutionary Truth. With guitarist Hidehito Ito at her side Amamiya howls out nationalistic and vehemently anti-American lyrics… but is this how [Read more...]
Atlantis Unbound is loosely inspired by the utopian novel The New Atlantis, written by Sir Francis Bacon in 1627. Bacon, the philosopher of the new science of progress and technology, sets the stage for the main character Francis Galton to ponder the secrets of heredity. Via the metamorphosis of images, myth and history are interwoven through the act of drawing and erasing. Francis Galton is [Read more...]