[KineJapan] Made in Japan: Yamagata 1989-2021

Tue Jan 18 04:08:17 EST 2022

And on the subject of this great initiative, I wrote a piece for the BFI directing people to the programme with my top picks:
https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/japanese-documentaries-from-yamagata-festival-now-streaming-free-online

Jasper Sharp

The Creeping Garden<http://www.creepinggarden.com/> - A Real-Life Science-Fiction Story about Slime Moulds and the People Who Work With them, directed by Tim Grabham and Jasper Sharp.
Available now on Dual-Format Blu-ray/DVD from Arrow Films<https://arrowfilms.com/product-detail/the-creeping-garden-dual-format/FCD1435>.
The book, The Creeping Garden: Irrational Encounters with Plasmodial Slime Moulds is out now from Alchimia Publishing<http://www.alchimiapublishing.com/creeping-garden/>.
"A surprising investigation of perception, thought and life itself", Nicolas Rapold, The New York Times<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/30/movies/review-the-creeping-garden-on-the-wonders-of-the-slime-mold.html>.
"An out-of-left-field nerdy delight", John DeFore, Hollywood Reporter<https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/creeping-garden-fantasia-review-724416>.
"Strange, eccentric, diverting", Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian<https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/mar/09/creeping-garden-review-slime-mould-film>.

________________________________
From: KineJapan <kinejapan-bounces at mailman.yale.edu> on behalf of Gerow Aaron via KineJapan <kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu>
Sent: 18 January 2022 03:18
To: Japanese Cinema Discussion Forum <kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu>
Cc: Gerow Aaron <aaron.gerow at yale.edu>
Subject: [KineJapan] Made in Japan: Yamagata 1989-2021

As some of you know, the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival is teaming up with DAFilms to screen online 10 select Japanese documentaries from the 30+ years of the festival, including work by Kawase Naomi, Sato Makoto, Hamaguchi Ryusuke, Oda Kaori, Yang Yonghi, and others. The series starts January 17 and is available for everyone outside of Japan. The first week is free. The description is below.

Along with the series, Markus Nornes is writing a post on each film that can be read on the YIDFF feed on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/yidff

There will also be some videos featuring those involved with the festival discussing its history and various aspects. One featuring Oda Kaori and Dwi Sujanti Nugraheni is already up, and the one I did with my partner Ono Seiko will be uploaded soon.

Hope you can check some of these out!

Aaron Gerow

++10 Japanese documentaries streaming online worldwide! ++
YIDFF partners with streaming service DAFilms, the VOD platform of the festival association Doc Alliance, for an online program available free for one week and on SVOD and TVOD for a further two weeks. The selection by YIDFF programmers highlights key works from the festival’s more than three decades in existence. This exclusive focus features documentaries by Kawase Naomi, Hamaguchi Ryusuke, and Ogawa Productions, among many others.
The complete selection will be available entirely for free on DAFilms.com<https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2FDAFilms.com%2F%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR2gjPTv-kvE2cS8pD-lPxRnb2ikYZbSYMFCoYbzdbME91I8tAAJsa53ggs&h=AT0leex7flDxRkt0yu9zT50Pc0qPibb0SOO9S5A31_6MI3Wn-3ERI0juaie8nqSu3nrMIfvu3SswsK1Yk5wao0TZcP0yGKELMCLl4doxDae8lVndjyR9Gj6UEcz0s6JcfTzzdLY&__tn__=-UK-R&c[0]=AT155zJqPq4V0yKqVPt8Ii5w6YV_HuCWANFeWWSt1pxIqF3IRbGSrlD6Winvfdm1wrFI7f4bLsLCtQysRAfEdhMnLzYEFQSzUuwxWkpDlAJmGMOXsJIDvmY0GSsb4rUNVot7Y9A90BiCT8gNw3886NrM43HdxybBjn23d7AXgjX4vYg> from January 17 - 23 at this link: https://dafilms.com/.../1126-made-in-japan-yamagata-1989...<https://dafilms.com/program/1126-made-in-japan-yamagata-1989-2021?fbclid=IwAR2ZggHPvdtQSbYas7rlgNc7mSvfgEv1S2KET5feaYr3R9zqh5nvM2507og>
The ten films in Made in Japan, Yamagata 1989 - 2021 trace a curious and inspiring pathway through the history of one of Asia’s most celebrated film festivals. The program is bookended by a cinematic record of the inaugural YIDFF in 1989, produced by Ogawa Shinsuke’s Ogawa Pro (A Movie Capital), and a 2021 documentary about the pandemic-induced closure of a traditional pickle shop, itself a memorable and important social space for the attendees of Yamagata every two years (Pickles and Komian Club).
Between these twin poles from 1989 and 2021, audiences will be able to discover a further 8 titles drawn mostly from the festival’s International Competition and New Asian Currents sections. For these two closely curated festival sections, only a small number of Japanese films have been invited over the 17 editions of the biennial festival, a sign of the significance of those featured.
Together, Made in Japan, Yamagata 1989 - 2021 gives a true sense of the depth of Yamagata’s curatorial vision, ranging from crucial early works by now celebrated auteurs —including The Weald by Kawase Naomi, in the year she completes her epic film about the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, and Storytellers co-directed by Hamaguchi Ryusuke, in a moment where his work has received truly boundless acclaim by critics, festival programmers, and audiences alike — to lesser known or older titles that as an ensemble suggest a richness of tone and subject that few documentary festivals can boast.
Program Coordinator and YIDFF board member Fujioka Asako says, “This is the first time Yamagata is presenting any online film program on a world-wide scale. Audiences are in for a treat as important rediscoveries (A Movie Capital and Living on the River Agano) have been digitized with renewed English subtitles. This will give documentary fans around the world a real flavor of what Yamagata is all about.”
“Few festivals in the world carry with them the sheer cinephile prestige of an institution like YIDFF,” says Christopher Small, head curator of DAFilms.com.<https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2FDAFilms.com%2F%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR1T4ORj_S6G6-1tc4jpoDghNfJdgVpBKrkOjcaJ05S3vSUl0u2QGxS_gJ4&h=AT0leex7flDxRkt0yu9zT50Pc0qPibb0SOO9S5A31_6MI3Wn-3ERI0juaie8nqSu3nrMIfvu3SswsK1Yk5wao0TZcP0yGKELMCLl4doxDae8lVndjyR9Gj6UEcz0s6JcfTzzdLY&__tn__=-UK-R&c[0]=AT155zJqPq4V0yKqVPt8Ii5w6YV_HuCWANFeWWSt1pxIqF3IRbGSrlD6Winvfdm1wrFI7f4bLsLCtQysRAfEdhMnLzYEFQSzUuwxWkpDlAJmGMOXsJIDvmY0GSsb4rUNVot7Y9A90BiCT8gNw3886NrM43HdxybBjn23d7AXgjX4vYg> “We are delighted to collaborate with Yamagata’s team on a program that spans the length and breadth of their three-decade history, synthesising so many of the most crucial themes and forms of experimentation into a unified selection of truly remarkable Japanese documentary cinema."
Made in Japan, Yamagata 1989 - 2021
Available on dafilms.com<https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fdafilms.com%2F%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR1OnRkMdkY6bP73W7T7mrxZkYb970bda3spPy4owpShv80mSTUscniDEh0&h=AT203otgXTOxbqLrS4NcC602fERXX8MHuSZkKhZoBngYn2c6LHW68z1lHse3UZUUmGV0tvj3Pmc0m7ezerk2bRLL6dZpoXbx4ezwqt3_gyr7tjouKaoZW_J6eFKlN_FsncJn4EM&__tn__=-UK-R&c[0]=AT155zJqPq4V0yKqVPt8Ii5w6YV_HuCWANFeWWSt1pxIqF3IRbGSrlD6Winvfdm1wrFI7f4bLsLCtQysRAfEdhMnLzYEFQSzUuwxWkpDlAJmGMOXsJIDvmY0GSsb4rUNVot7Y9A90BiCT8gNw3886NrM43HdxybBjn23d7AXgjX4vYg> from January 17 - February 6
Free for registered users for the first week
● A Movie Capital // IIZUKA Toshio // 1991
● Living on the River Agano // SATO Makoto // 1992 // Award of Excellence YIDFF '93
● The Weald // KAWASE Naomi // 1997
● The New God // TSUCHIYA Yutaka // 1999
● A2 // MORI Tatsuya // 2001 // Special Prize, Citizens’ Prize YIDFF 2001
● The Cheese and the Worms // KATO Haruyo // 2005 // Ogawa Shinsuke Prize, FIPRESCI Prize YIDFF2005
● Dear Pyongyang // YANG Yonghee // 2005 // Special Prize, YIDFF 2005
● Storytellers // SAKAI Ko, HAMAGUCHI Ryusuke // 2013 // SkyPerfectTV IDEHA Prize, YIDFF 2013
● Cenote // ODA Kaori // 2019
● Komian and Pickles // SATO Koichi // 2021
Commissioned by the Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan
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