(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...]
(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...]
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...]
The women prisoners from different regions in Mexico with the illiteracy rate closer to 80 percent, because they spoke different languages, they could not communicate with each other in the prison. Having learned a common language together in the rehabilitation programs of prison, they exchange letters after release from prison. These women, who found their voice toward the world, reflect the [Read more...]
In 2006, Hansu Siirala suffered two major strokes that left one half of her body immobile. She now lives in an assisted living home in Vancouver, Canada. Combining a phone conversation with abstract and animated visuals, Hansu Solo is an intimate portrait about how she spends her days and thinks about the passing of time. This film brings together our interest in small details and the big [Read more...]
Philippines/France/Germany/Netherlands, Drama/Experimental, 2009, 77min. Dir: Raya Martin. Japan Premiere! Synopsis & UPAF Memo: Early 20th century Philippines. Sounds of war signal the arrival of the Americans. A mother and son flee to the mountains, hoping for a quiet life. One day, the son discovers a wounded woman in the middle of the forest, and brings her home. Years pass. Man, [Read more...]
USA, Documentary, 2015, 68min. Dir: Tamar Rogoff & Daisy Wright. Japan Premiere! Synopsis & UPAF Memo: The unlikely collaboration between a veteran choreographer and a young actor with cerebral palsy delivers astonishing proof that each and every body is capable of miraculous transformation. As Tamar Rogoff trains Gregg Mozgala to become a dancer, they discover that her lack of [Read more...]
Brazil, documentary, 2013, 85min. Dir: Tiago Campos. A Vídeo nas Aldeias production. Japan Premiere! Synopsis & UPAF Memo: Two filmmakers portray life in the village and mission of Sangradouro, Mato Grosso: Adalbert Heide, an eccentric German missionary, who soon after contact with the Indians in 1957, starts to film with his Super-8 camera; and Divino Tserewahu, a young Xavante filmmaker, [Read more...]
Nigeria, drama, 2009, 120min. Dir: Kunle Afolayan. Western Japan Premiere! Synopsis & UPAF Memo: The Figurine is a story of two friends and a girl. All down on their luck, their lives change when one of them discovers 'Araromire' a mysterious figurine in an abandoned shrine which, according to legend bestows seven years of good luck. But no one told them about the next seven [Read more...]
The Philippines, docu-drama-essay film fusion, 16mm, 95min, 1977. Original title: Mababangong Bangungot. Dir: Kidlat Tahimik. Chugoku-region Premiere! Kidlat in person & guest talk on 8/21 Sunday evening !! <from Harvard Film Archive> “With his first film, the former Eric de Guia not only debuted his nom du cinéma, Kidlat Tahimik (meaning ‘quiet lightning’ in Tagalog), but also its [Read more...]