YIDFF recap

[iyobe kiwa]

It was very nice to finally meet some of you KineJapan folks at YIDFF. I 
hope everyone who went was able to enjoy it as much as I did. Did any of 
you actually watch the 9-hour doc that won the grand prize? Since the jury 
was unanimous in that decision, I really want to see it now but I don't 
think the chances of it being screened again any time soon are very high. 
If anyone has seen it, I would love to hear more about it. 

Tsuchiya Yutaka's _Peep "TV" Show_ was very intriguing, though I thought he 
could have done away with a lot of the scenes (especially in the 
beginning). Especially since I was living in NYC during 9/11 it was 
interesting to finally see articulations of how some Japanese reacted to 
the event (as both actual event and televised image). Because though people 
will ask me questions about it here, I find that most people are not able 
to talk about how they personally reacted to seeing it.  It's difficult to 
articulate how you feel about something like that in any language, I 
suppose, but it seems especially difficult here, you know?  So I thought 
Tsuchiya's film was a good attempt. (He told me it was supposed to be his 
first stab at it anyway...)

I actually don't have anything fantastic to say about the Okinawa retro 
because I missed most of the good parts. I couldn't get into _Sashingwa_ 
(Takamine Go), etc. And what I did get to see--documented interviews by the 
Okinawa Historical Preservation Society--was interesting at first but then 
became intensely boring aftera while. The _Nanamui_ series about singing 
Okinawan priestesses was really hard to watch without nodding off as well. 
Maybe I was particularly tired that day, but I have to say I was a bit 
disappointed. I enjoyed Aaron's bit in the Okinawa symposium. It's too bad 
though that it wasn't moderated all that well, because don't you think 
there could have been more discussion?

BTW, the Oct issue of Koukoku Hihyou has a bunch of interviews with 
Japanese documentary filmmakers in it. Tsuchiya is in it, alongside Mori 
Tatsuya, Kawase, and Kore-eda, etc.

Again, I'm very glad I got to meet a lot of you in Yamagata!  I hope to go 
back in 2005!

Kiwa Iyobe

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