Hong Kong International Film Festival

[Aaron Gerow]

Thanks to L.C. for giving us info on the HKFF.  I checked out the website 
and noticed that some Japanese shorts are also playing:

Japanese Short and Video 
            This program of charming, technically accomplished shorts
            maintains the Japanese fascination with things mechanical
            but also sports a curious relationship with the environment.
            Bird Watching (Yaguchi Shinobu, 1996, 15 min.) is a droll
            meditation on human being's relationship with machines,
            nature and each other through the story of a girl, her 
friends,
            her camcorder and a man who calls himself a bird watcher.
            Video Answering Machine (Shinozaki Makoto, 1990, 30 min.)
            is about a young woman who leaves a camera at her door as
            an answering machine for visitors. It is a funny takeoff on
            horror flicks that captures a life style in which machine
            mediates everything but people still visit unannounced. My
            My Tsuburi (Rie Matsubara, 1996, 13 min.) uses different
            modes of animation to create a technological representation
            of nature, turning a little girl's exploration in the woods 
into a
            discovery of poetic and mystical proportions. Killer Camera
            (Serizawa Yoichiro, 1996, 3 min.) gives new meaning to
            media violence, a one-punch joke that knows exactly when to
            pull its punches. Fade Into White (Goshima Kazuhiro, 1996,
            5 min.) is a remarkable work on the nature of images. Closing
            out the program, Crossing and Roundscape (Nakanishi
            Yoshihisa,1996/1997, 4/4 min.) are an imaginative animator's
            idea of a lively neighborhood, in which objects dance in
            unrehearsed orchestration. Total running time: 74 min.

I have to put in a plug for _Killer Camera_, not only for its clever use 
of experimental technique, but because I did the subtitles (yes, only 
three minutes worth!).

Aaron Gerow