Mini-theme of UPAF 2015
In addition to the overarching theme of “Life, Art, Film,” UPAF sets a mini-theme every year. This year’s mini-theme is “Islam.” 2015 is the 70th anniversary year of the end of WWII. When we ponder the post-WWII world and Japan’s position in it– regardless of the angle from which we try to look at it, whether it be through the independence movements in Africa and Asia or the resources for our modern lives, wars, terrorism, post-cold war economic structure– we cannot avoid Islam.
Protected in the cocoon of peaceful post-WWII Japan, people in Japan used to hear about the horrendous news of the world and feel as if they were happening in a different sphere. But they don’t seem so unreal these days. It has finally become apparent that Japan had been involved all along, even while the people in this island nation kept dreaming peaceful dreams. What is Islam? To peek into this vast world, we have collected several diverse films from the Islamic diaspora– a beautiful love story, breathtaking political epic drama, fiction, documentary, experimental films from Algeria, Cyprus, United States, and India’s Kashmir region.
Other soulful films at UPAF 2015 include an independent drama feature from China (shot in Nanking) that has screened at the world’s top festivals but not in its native country due to the lack of governmental approval, a documentary about Fukushima mothers who are determined about remaining in their native land and protecting their children, a spirited documentary about a former Yakuza mobster-turned-tatooed-minister.
The children’s program (free admission!) has films that are so fun and beautiful and imaginative that they can be enjoyed by anyone between the ages of 3 and 108 years old! Please bring your family and friends. See you all at UPAF 2015, Aug 7-10.
Evaporating Borders by Iva Radivojevic Cyprus/USA, 73min, 2014, color, Essay documentary, Japan Premiere sneak preview! An essay in five parts, Evaporating Borders offers a series of vignettes, poetically guided by the filmmaker's curious eye and personal reflections. Through the people she encounters along the way, the film dissects the experience of asylum seekers in Cyprus : A PLO activist [Read more...]
Mock Angel Dir. Tomomichi Nakamura, Japan, 13min, 2014, digital, color, 2D animation drama. (This short film will be shown with "June Bride") A girl wanted a change in her bland and uninteresting daily routine. She keeps a bird as a pet to create some change, and finds herself dreaming of having a child with it. The child of a bird and a woman is called a “mock-angel” and is angelic in [Read more...]
Semiotics of Islam Dir. Fouzia Najar, US, 2014, 7min. digital, experimental. (This short film will be shown with "Where Should the Birds Fly.") Inspired by Martha Rosler’s “Semiotic of the Kitchen” (1975, a feminist experimental film in which a housewife expresses her frustration by demonstrating the use of various kitchen products that surround her), this film combats Islamophobia. Queens [Read more...]
Paraíso Dir. Nadav Kurtz, US, 10min. 2012, color, documentary. (This short film will be shown with "Evaporating Borders") Three immigrant window cleaners risk their lives every day rappelling down some of Chicago’s tallest sky-scrapers. Paraíso reveals the danger of their job and what they see on the way down. Best Documentary Awards at the Tribeca, Chicago, Seattle, Cine Las Americas, [Read more...]
1. Rabbit and Deer Dir. Péter Vácz, Hungary, 16’15”, 2013, 2d/3D animation, drama. Rabbit and Deer are living happily and careless until their friendship is put to the test by Deer's new obsession with finding the formula for entering the 3rd dimension. After an unexpected accident Deer finds himself in a new world, unknown to him. Separated by dimensions the two friends have to find the way [Read more...]
June Bride: Redemption of a Yakuza Dir. Derek Shimoda, Japan/USA, 80min, 2015, color, documentary. Japan Premiere! June Bride trailer subbed from UPAF on Vimeo. It took a missing finger to find God. JUNE BRIDE: REDEMPTION OF A YAKUZA is a feature-length documentary about Tatsuya Shindo, a former mobster turned preacher, who seeks forgiveness for a life's worth of disappointment and crime in his [Read more...]
Where Should the Birds Fly Dir. Fida Qishta, Palestinian Territories, 58min, 2013, color, documentary. Japan Premiere! Not recommended for children under 15. WSBF.trailer.subbed from UPAF on Vimeo. Fida Qishta, a native of the Gaza Strip, grew up in the continuing conflict and witnessed her parents’ house of 30 years bulldozed by the Israeli army. Soon the young woman, taking a video [Read more...]
Valley of Saints Dir. Musa Syeed, India (Kashmir region), 83min, 2014, fiction. In war-torn Kashmir, a lakeside city is plunged into a military curfew. Stranded together on breathtaking Dal Lake, a working-class boatman and a beautiful young scientist form an unlikely bond. But as violence spills in from the city, their budding romance may not survive. Sundance Film Festival Audience Award [Read more...]
Little Voices from Fukushima Dir. Hitomi Kamanaka, Japan, 119min, 2015, color, documentary. This film investigates the impact of the 3/11 nuclear disaster on mothers and children living in the post-meltdown area, and draws parallels with mothers and children in Belarus, who learned to survive, scarred but self-educated, after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster 28 years ago. As Kamanaka puts it: [Read more...]
Trap Street, Dir. Vivian Qu, China, 84min, 2013, color, drama Li Qiuming is a young trainee at a digital mapping company. His job is to survey the streets of the ever-changing city and keep the mapping system up to date. To make ends meet, he installs video cameras at public venues, but hides his side job from his strict father who is a senior editor of a government-run magazine. One day [Read more...]