Filmmakers’ Market
産地直送 The Filmmakers’ Market Is Now Open!
The Filmmakers’ Market is a new marketplace for documentaries that tears down the walls separating Japanese filmmakers and foreign viewers and allows filmmakers to bring their English-subtitled works in for direct sale, kind of like a farmer’s fresh produce market. We plan to feature not only Japanese but also other Asian documentaries. All of the DVDs are packaged by the directors and producers themselves, so some may have only Japanese on the package or in the booklet (we note as such below), but and all of them have English subtitles.
US $43.00
Total running time: Approx. 59 minutes. / color
Being the last geisha in Yoshiwara, the only licensed pleasure quarter in megalopolis Edo, which became present-day Tokyo, means she stood at the end of a 400-year-old lineage of women entertainers. From childhood she trained daily in the traditional arts of music and dance, and though she had to sacrifice the kind of domestic bliss most Japanese girls longed for, she built an incredibly full, fiercely independent career before, during and after WWII, “all for the best.” The Madame is sharp—sharper than most of the men she performs in front of—and we’re lucky to have her and the age she outlived together on film. by Robert Campbell, Professor of Japanese Literature, University of Tokyo
US $34.95
Total running time: Approx. 77 min. / color
“Through my story, I hope viewers will come to feel closer to a world without war and nuclear weapons. Please ponder that possibility as you watch this film.”—Keiji Nakazawa
With the passing of Nakazawa Keiji in December 2012, Barefoot Gen’s Hiroshima now stands as the manga artist’s last message of peace to the world. Mr. Nakazawa recounts his life, from the aftermath of the atomic bombing up until the days he created his acclaimed manga series Barefoot Gen (Hadashi no Gen), by exploring sites of painful memories in Hiroshima. Through Mr. Nakazawa’s story, and his original art work, Barefoot Gen’s Hiroshima illuminates the nature of war and nuclear weapons, urging us not to repeat the past.
US $35.00
Total running time: Approx. 116 minitues. / color
For 28 years, the people of Iwaishima Island, living in the middle of the beautiful Inland Sea, have been opposing a plan to build a nuclear power plant. The island has a 1000-year history during which people have preserved their traditional festival. Takashi, the youngest on the island, is struggling to earn his living. He dreams of a life based on sustainable energy. Meanwhile, communities in Sweden are making an effort to implement such lives. The people living in the Arctic circle have taken action to overcome damage from the global economy. On Iwaishima, Mr. Ujimoto has begun sustainable agriculture by reclaiming abandoned farmlands. But a power company tries to fill in a bay to create man-made land. The people of the island set sail together to stop the construction of the nuclear power plant. A fight breaks out on the sea.
US $40.00
Total running time: Approx. 87 minutes. / color
The burden of Agent Orange, across generations and across the world—and the courage to face and bear the consequences.
US $30.00
Total running time: Approx. 53. / color
Nishinari in Osaka is home to one of Japan’s largest concentrations of day laborers, with much of the population being composed of homeless persons, buraku (a discriminated community of descendants of outcast groups), former yakuza, and Korean-Japanese. This documentary presents the people of Nishinari, not from on high, but rather from their own level.
US $35.00
Total running time: Approx. 102 minitues. / color
In 2004 the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant was completed in Rokkasho village as a facility for reprocessing spent fuel from Japan’s nuclear reactors into plutonium. The film spotlights the people of the village, who hold diverse opinions regarding this huge, nearly operational national project.
US $30.00
Total running time: Approx. 117 . / color
Bingai, a documentary by Feng Yan, a director deeply inspired by Shinsuke Ogawa, has just been added to the Filmmakers’ Market. Bingai won the Ogawa Shinsuke Prize (the grand prize of Asia program) at the Yamagata Film Festival.
US $30.00
Total running time: Approx. 103 minutes. / color
Seven years in the making, this moving documentary is the first to directly confront the legacy of the Miike coal mine, reviving through eyewitness testimonies 150 years of forced labor, strikes and explosions that modern Japan is still trying to forget.
US $30.00
Total running time: Approx. 130 minutes. / color
In the spring of 2002, the Israeli army surrounded and attacked the Balata refugee camp. The camera follows residents living in at state of terror and records their lives and feelings.
US $30.00
Total running time: Approx. 93 minutes. / color
This is a film about seven artists. It’s also about seven people who are mentally handicapped. This has all the marks of a Makoto Sato film: the quirky humor and passion for everyday human life.