The Yamagata Film Criticism Workshop will take place for the forth time during YIDFF 2019. This project encourages thoughtful writing on and discussion of cinema, while offering aspiring film critics the chance to immerse themselves in the lively atmosphere of a film festival.
A Non-Place Moving Train
On No Data Plan, directed by Miko Revereza. Philippines/USA, 2018. Presented at YIDFF 2019 in New Asian Currents.
by Elise Shick
When I first saw Miko Revereza’s No Data Plan (2019), it reminded me of Jonas Mekas’s On My Way to Fujiyama, I Saw… (1996). Traveling from one place to another, the director/narrator in each film captures landscapes from the point of view of a moving train by using a handheld camera. However, there is a clear difference between these two films: Mekas’s film emphasizes the ephemerality of how the narrator gazes at the landscape, whereas Revereza shows that time is expandable, as the landscape and the narrator constantly exchange gazes during his three-day journey from Los Angeles to New York.
Time slows down as we accompany the filmmaker from the crowded station onto the train. The noise from the surroundings subsides as the text of the narrator’s internal monologue appears superimposed on the images of moving landscape. We see him reflected in the window, holding a camera, aiming at the landscape outside the train, while in his written text he contemplates his existence and the anxieties of being an undocumented person in ICE-age America. Revereza cuts between traveling shots of the landscape and static shots of the cabin seats. As I watch this juxtaposition, I undergo the same experience as the narrator: sitting in a chair and looking at the moving images in front of me while allowing myself to be a stateless, fluid figure who moves between my own consciousness and the film.
The relationship between time and space established by No Data Plan attributes a non-place quality to the train cabin that changes the perception of time and allows self-interrogation. Revereza abolishes past and present as he combines, within the space of the cabin, conversations with his mother, the pain he experiences as a paperless person in the United States, and the recurring dream of being stuck in the Manila airport. The train cabin is not a place of belonging for the narrator and the other passengers. It has a malleable quality. Anonymous passengers board and get off, while the space allows the enactment of their imaginations and memories. As the train moves forward, the narrator becomes increasingly displaced. The sight of unfamiliar places and landscapes reaffirms his stateless status. Strangely, these moving images projected on the screen make me wonder why I, who hold a legitimate citizenship, can still resonate with this sense of displacement during the concentrated 70 minutes of the film.
The Yamagata Film Criticism Workshop will take place for the forth time during YIDFF 2019. This project encourages thoughtful writing on and discussion of cinema, while offering aspiring film critics the chance to immerse themselves in the lively atmosphere of a film festival.
Attack Number One
On Senso Daughters, directed by Noriko Sekiguchi. Australia/Papua New Guinea/Japan, 1990. Presented at YIDFF 2019 in AM/NESIA: Forgotten “Archipelagos” of Oceania.
by Elise Shick
How can a nation reconcile with the past if they are living in denial? Through a montage of archival footage and testimonies from both the perpetrators and the sufferers, Noriko Sekiguchi’s Senso Daughters unfolds the unacknowledged controversy (the so-called “Forgotten War”) of Japanese military violence towards the Melanesian population in Papua New Guinea during World War II.
The word “population” is employed here because it represents both men and women who suffer and are used as commodities of warfare. This film can be seen, felt, and understood as more than a documentation of sexual violence towards women. It provides evidence of how the discourse of war was invented by the European colonial powers and then imitated by Japan to silence and annihilate its subjects, among them the self-sacrificing soldiers who served the country.
Even though Sekiguchi does not explicitly show that the soldiers are also the victims of war, the film itself reveals that both the soldiers and the Melanesians are employed as tools to sustain the unequal distribution of political power. A Melanesian man who wears a Japanese soldier’s hat dances while singing a Japanese song that praises the Japanese emperor. The camera gazes at him like an object and captures the ironic chauvinism embodied in his movements. He is another representative of the process by which militaristic colonialism reduces human beings to devices that can be fully exploited. Similarly, the comfort women whose names are not recorded become objects that function only to satisfy the need for pleasure in the military settlement. On the other hand, Japanese soldiers are required to conduct their sexual activities under a set of regulations that include the obligation to wear a condom labelled “Attack Number One.”
Survivors’ testimonies reveal the military officials’ denials of the existence of comfort women in Papua New Guinea, which are contradicted by the Melanesians’ memories of living with the comfort women and washing their clothes. By placing the two terms of the contradiction side by side, Sekiguchi draws a clear line between the positions of the oppressor and the oppressed. She also establishes a power relation between herself as filmmaker and the viewers: the former informs, the latter receives. Her discourse is pigeonholing in establishing a dichotomy of exploitative men and exploited women. The root of the comfort women issue is not gender power relations, but colonialism.
The Yamagata Film Criticism Workshop will take place for the forth time during YIDFF 2019. This project encourages thoughtful writing on and discussion of cinema, while offering aspiring film critics the chance to immerse themselves in the lively atmosphere of a film festival.
A Community Unimagined
On Between Tides, directed by Masa Fox. Japan/USA, 2018. Presented at YIDFF 2019 in AM/NESIA: Forgotten “Archipelagos” of Oceania.
by Ryan Lim
Documentaries fill gaps, but Masa Fox has left some unfilled in Between Tides.
Many of the local inhabitants of the Bonin Islands, an archipelago 1,000 kilometers south of Tokyo, have Western ancestries traceable to a time before the islands came into Japanese possession in the 19th century. Fox’s sketch of these people relies on a talking-head mode that visually clarifies little else beyond the subjects. Squarely situated within the spaces of Fox’s interviews, the film’s environment is mainly restricted to the people’s homes, folding inward and away from their sites of labor or leisure.
When their islandic landscapes emerge, it is not through documentation, but by deliberate reference to archives: a wealth of print journalism and made-for-(mostly Japanese)-television documentaries covering the islands’ reversion to Japan in 1968. Fox’s subjects appear as younger versions of themselves in such archives. One interviewee recounts being quoted in Nat Geo (without her knowledge). In a newsreel, the completion of a road, on ground that the locals once helped level, is celebrated as Japan’s gift of modernity. The ideological construction behind these newsreels (many of them NHK-produced), inevitably envisioned them as either hard-working subjects (or perhaps lazy natives: either way the master remains) in a landscape newly made foreign.
Between Tides’ fissure between subject and setting then seems less an accidental shortcoming than the intentional surfacing of an ethical problem. It is against such images that the talking head stands out. In its nakedness, with nothing else but the subject to look at, it leaves little space for imagination.
This is not to call Between Tides unimaginative; rather, it is constructed according to a visual honesty towards its subject and skepticism towards any representations beyond. Just when the film seems to make recourse to images of laboring locals out fishing, it playfully uncovers a filming crew on another boat behind. The regimes of representation of labor and “nativeness” are freighted with colonial, othering associations. Fox self-consciously strips bare these associations just as they seem to take shape.
Testimony is accorded a special status in Between Tides: without it, images feel impoverished, and individuals become invisible. The singularity of talking heads seems to restore the locals to their subjecthood. Resisting that imaginative streak that abstracts disparate individuals into landscapes (“Bonin”) or society (“Boninian”), Fox is interested only in the space an individual occupies, even if it means leaving the gap between that and all else unfilled.
The Yamagata Film Criticism Workshop will take place for the forth time during YIDFF 2019. This project encourages thoughtful writing on and discussion of cinema, while offering aspiring film critics the chance to immerse themselves in the lively atmosphere of a film festival.
Four Lives in Reflection
On Invisible Actors (Boiji anhneun baeu deul), directed by Chae Hyeong-sik. South Korea, 2018. Presented at YIDFF 2019 in New Asian Currents.
by Kosuke Fujiki
“What is documentary? While fiction shows a reality by reenacting it, documentary does so by quoting it.” This text, one of the many intertitles that pepper Chae Hyeong-sik’s Invisible Actors, invites us to muse on the relationship between reality and documentary, while also commenting on the unusual structure of the film, built on frequent transitions between the two modes of reenactment and quotation.
The film’s protagonists are four struggling actresses: You-lim, Ji-hye, Moon-young, and Joo-yeon. As the film follows their not-so-glamorous daily routines, they are fully aware that they are being filmed. In fact, as is revealed early in the film, they are acting for the camera, having discussed their daily lives and decided upon what is to be filmed. At each of their meetings, held every two or three weeks, the actresses voice their lack of confidence and their concerns over the precarious status of their profession as well as their marginalized position as women in Korean society. In mockumentary sequences, each actress reenacts such experiences as living alone in a squalid apartment, being snubbed at job interviews and auditions, having to work part-time to make ends meet, and being constantly worried by their family. In these sequences, the camera often lingers on the scene even after the actress leaves the frame, as if to suggest that what it strives to capture is not simply these individual actresses, but rather the unsympathetic environment in which their sufferings are rendered invisible.
Through a series of discussions and reconstructions of the four actresses’ lives, the film enables the women to reflect on both their personal and social realities. Reflection is a key motif not only on the thematic level, but also on the visual level. As Joo-young obsessively scrubs the floor of her apartment, she is filmed as a reflection in a standing full-length mirror. Ji-hye’s despondent face following a rough job interview is shown reflected on a window on a subway train. You-lim reads out her past notes, reminiscing about the anxieties and aspirations of her younger self. And Moon-young reenacts her unsuccessful audition by playing both the interviewer and the auditionee, digitally sutured into a single shot. These scenes of visualized reflections hint that the film’s intervention encourages the protagonists to come to a deeper understanding of themselves.
Chae’s self-reflective filmmaking expands the scope of what a documentary film can do to reality. Rather than concealing the filmmaker’s intervention and pretending to offer an unmediated record of reality, the film foregrounds its medial nature and uses it in a productive way. Even though Chae never appears on screen, his directorial presence is palpable throughout the film, serving as a catalyst that drives the protagonists toward self-awareness.
Due to the approaching typhoon, the convening at the 「Komian」restaurant will be cancelled for tonight October 12th. We look forward to seeing you there tomorrow!
Screening dates of Cachada—The Opportunity and Your Turn at the Yamagata Citizens’ Hall (L) have been changed as follows. Please be aware of this change when coming to the venue.
New Schedule:
Yamagata Citizens’ Hall (Large Hall) Oct 12 (Sat) 18:10: Cachada—The Opportunity (originally Your Turn) Oct 15 (Tue) 13:30: Your Turn (originally Cachada—The Opportunity)
* Both screenings will be followed by directors’ Q&As.
Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival celebrates 30 years! We’ve opened a facebook page inviting former audiences, filmmakers, staff, volunteers, and all fans to share their memories from the past 15 editions of the festival.
Fateful encounters, astonishing episodes, joyous exchanges. Stylized snapshots from 15 unforgettable moments of YIDFF’s 30-year history, now as postcards. Going on sale at YIDFF 2019, Oct 10-17 for 1,000 yen + tax.
Screenings at the Yamagata Documentary Film Library present documentaries and movies rarely shown on television or in theaters, including works from the Film Library vaults.
The House on Arbat Street 14:00-、19:00（screens twice）
The House on Arbat Street
YIDFF ’95 International Competition
Dir: Marina Goldovskaya / RUSSIA / 1993 / 16mm / 59 min
●notes
The story of the people who lived in the house on Arbat Street is the story of Russia in the 20th century. Built in the early 1900s, this grand apartment building was at first the residence of rich and privileged families. After the revolution of 1917, it was turned into a collective housing unit. People from different backgrounds were moved to this house and told, “From now on you will all have to live together.” Through historical footage and the reminiscences of former residents—some now 98 years old—the incredible story of The House on Arbat Street comes to life.
The House on Arbat Street
In Memory of the Chinatown 14:00-、19:00（screens twice）
In Memory of the Chinatown
YIDFF 2017 New Asian Currents
Dir: Chen Chun-Tien / TAIWAN / 2016 / Video / 30 min
●notes
Tainan City’s so-called “Chinatown,” once a bustling residential and commercial complex established in the 1970s, is about to be torn down. In and around this building breathlessly awaiting its own destruction, security cameras record shuttered storefronts, and dogs sleep in their usual spots. Karaoke bar monitors shine to the sound of muttering microphones. The breathing of the ruin-like building resonates with the memories of former residents, while the current inhabitants speak of the neighborhood’s vibrant past as if mourning the dead. Each of their lives is a passing chapter in the history of this place.
●Director’s Statement
The existence of a building is related to the kinetic and organic development of a certain time and space. From prosperity to impoverishment, from the well organized to the dilapidated, both outer causes (such as government and urban planning policy) and inner causes (circumstances of the residents) influence a building’s life and fortunes. No matter what kind of future it may face, these are the dynamic processes that build up the historical value of the building. This value is unlikely to—and should not—be wiped out if the building falls into ruin, is rebuilt, or becomes demolished.
That is why this film is largely composed using one photo after another, instead of moving images. Using moving images leads to a narrative form that keeps its pace in subjugation to the movement of time. The approach of using photographs—cutting up and sampling certain pieces of time—not only freezes the physical time flow, but also stirs up the audience’s mental sense of time. I decided I’d like to erect a monument in honor of “the Chinatown” in Tainan city, with images for stone columns, and the residents’ narratives as the epigraph. This is my attempt to commemorate the landscape of a place about to be lost.
Chen Chun-Tien
In Memory of the Chinatown
[Venue]The YAMAGATA Documentary Film Library(Yamagata Big Wing 3F) [Admission]Free admission for members (Member’s fee: free) [Presented by]YIDFF (NPO) [Contact]e-mail：info@yidff.jp(YIDFF Yamagata office)
Screenings at the Yamagata Documentary Film Library present documentaries and movies rarely shown on television or in theaters, including works from the Film Library vaults.
A Memory in Khaki 14:00-、19:00-（screens twice）
A Memory in Khaki
YIDFF 2017 The Mayor’s Prize
Dir: Alfoz Tanjour / QATAR / 2016 / 108 min
●notes
“If it weren’t for this place, I wouldn’t be me.” The artist Ibrahim Samuel, whom director Alfoz Tanjour respects and admires, once spoke of his love for Damascus in this way. Years later, he left the Damascus that he loved. Ibrahim and three others appear in this film and speak about their complicated thoughts on their homeland. For one character, home is a repressive world symbolized by the color khaki; for another it is a violent world drenched in red. In this film the director depicts the incomparable emotions involved in losing the place where one was raised. This expression of bitter sadness marks the heart of the viewer, and will not be easily alleviated.
A Memory in Khaki
●Director’s Statement
I love images, stories, and dreams—this intellectual and imaginative combination initially stemming from the long process of observing reality.
Cinema narrates its own world, using images. Its pictorial expression is like the expressing of dreams; as Fellini said, “Dreams are the only reality.”
I was born in the seventies. My father was a communist, which was normal at that time in the city of Salamiyah, which had a history of poetry, dry desert air, and left-wing Marxism. I never attended the Baath Party sessions, nor those of any other party. I simply used to escape—sometimes to the small cinema in my town, and more often into the stories of Chekhov and Tolstoy. I was influenced by Zorba and Marquez. I loved Baudelaire and Hermann Hesse. To me, reading was a beautiful world that I used to escape to. I didn’t know back then that this would be my motivation to study cinema, and my desire to seek out the truth.
The most remarkable thing that happened to me during making this film was when I sought asylum in Austria. It was difficult for me to believe that I was outside my homeland and Syrians kept being killed in Syria every day! It was a very hard experience on the psychological and humanitarian level, which encouraged me to combat weakness by making this movie.
I wanted to face exile, fear, and maybe nostalgia with my work, through cinema. I wanted this film to be a cry out, for that which is embattled inside the spirits of individuals who lived under the oppressive Syrian regime. I wanted as well to shed a light on years of silence, terror, dark prisons, and to dive into the roots of what happened and is still happening in Syria: the events which were behind the eruption of Syria’s society and the start of its revolution.
The film presents stories of different people, the way they deal with a reality imposed upon them as a predetermined fate, their battles with day-to-day life, their minor imaginary victories and their many defeats, disappointments and anguish.
This film is a Syrian narrative, which by laying out the past, tells the story of the future.
Alfoz Tanjour
『カーキ色の記憶』
I Am the One Who Brings Flowers to Her Grave 16:10-（single screening）
I Am the One Who Brings Flowers to Her Grave
YIDFF 2007 International Competition
Dir: Hala Alabdalla, Ammar Albeik / SYRIA / 2006 / 110 min
●notes
Unable to return even once to her hometown in Syria since leaving in 1981, Hala begins shooting a film in France with her younger friend Ammar serving as cameraman. She conducts intimate interviews with friends who remain separated from their homeland as old age approaches, and includes scenes showing the creative process of her painter husband, exiled for twenty-five years now. The camera, with its frequent hand-held shots and extreme close-ups that seem to reject an objective perspective, glides freely through time and space, revealing the poetry and urge to create poetry in daily life while lamenting the relentless passage of time and giving voice to love for one’s homeland.
I Am the One Who Brings Flowers to Her Grave
●Director’s Statement
A poem by Daed Hadad, a female Syrian poet who died in 1991:
I set out on a quest, I am searching.
I take a small camera, I film my girlfriends
I take my small camera, I film my journey
I take my small camera, I film the people who have inspired me
My girlfriends facing me My journey guides my feet People orient my thoughts
My girlfriends
We four women,
We have not yet turned 50, but the moment is nearing
We, and each one on her own, will say that an accomplished life does not mean accomplishing one’s dream.
My journey
My journey guides my feet
My feet guide me on my journey
The journey that sketches the features of my film
The journey that ends in the locations of my suspended films
The journey of my life.
The people
My thoughts are guided towards my unmade films
People guide me towards places from where I must embark
People guide me toward people I should meet
People guide me toward the light under which I ought to give birth.
Hala Alabdalla
Ammar Albeik
『彼女の墓に花をそえるのは私』
[Venue]The YAMAGATA Documentary Film Library(Yamagata Big Wing 3F) [Admission]Free admission for members (Member’s fee: free) [Presented by]YIDFF (NPO) [Contact]e-mail：info@yidff.jp(YIDFF Yamagata office)
![ドキュ山ライブ! [DOCU-YAMA LIVE!]](http://www.yidff-live.info/wp-content/themes/yidff-live_2017/images/header_sp_logo1.png){kind=logo}
