Shari | 62m49s | 2021 | color | DCP | 5.1ch
A shepherd who bakes, a married couple who hunt deer, a fisherman who picks up trash from the sea, the owner of a Hall of Hidden Treasures, and a person who observes flying squirrels that live in her yard. These people live on the Shiretoko Peninsula, a special place located at the tip of the north part of Japan where rare, wild animals coexist with humans and drift ice reaches its coast touching the Sea of Okhotsk in winter. But for some reason, there is very little snow in the winter of 2020. The drift ice hasn’t appeared yet, either.
As strange events continue to occur in the town of Shari, “The Red Thing” suddenly appears. With the pulsating energy of a throbbing blood clot, it bursts into a lively children’s sumo tournament! “Let’s try sumo wrestling!” This is the true story of a mysterious happening in Shari, where nature, animals, and humans live at odds with each other.
Wheel Music | 13m57s | 2019
The presence of sound signifies the existence of life.A diary film, resembling a gentle hum, that weaves together all the precious noises of this world.
I attached a camera to my bike and pedaled through the area. Naturally, there were many people — and many cyclists. On a whim, I decided to follow a man who had just passed me on his bike. I wanted to avoid alarming him or making him uncomfortable, so I kept my distance, maintaining a steady rhythm without being noticed. As I matched the rhythm of his pedaling, predicting his braking patterns and mirroring them with my own, I began to feel as though he and I were the same person. The synchronization amused me, so I continued to follow various people, adjusting my rhythm to theirs. Some matched my usual pace, others were far faster or slower. There were people humming, parents with children, riders on electric bikes, and couriers carrying goods. For a few fleeting minutes, I felt as though I inhabited their bodies, riding behind them.
By the riverside, as expected, I found many cyclists. But it wasn’t just cyclists — there were runners, walkers, players, throwers, and sitters. The openness of the space made it easy to see people even at a distance. Each moved at their own unique pace, and the sounds they made as they passed one another constantly faded in and out. For brief moments, their movements intersected with mine. I imagined these sounds and movements stitched together to form a kind of music.
Grand Bouquet | 14m28s | 2018
The Pear and the Fang | 30m | 2018
Ayano is a woman shutting herself in her city apartment. One day, she finds a Japanese pear that she hadn’t noticed. She names this lovely plump pear “Tamako,” and dotes on it. Satoko is a woman growing Japanese pears in a place full of nature. One day, she notices a pear that she raised with great care was stolen from her farm. And there is a bloody fang of a beast beside a torn burlap sack. Secret worlds of two women cross over a fresh pear and sharp fang.
Across the Water | 8m47s | 2018
This is a dance film that takes place by a lakeside. Where the rain never stops and where bodies are entrusted to the water, air, and nature.
Stories floating on the wind | 9m4s | 2018
Manazuru — A Coastal Town in Kanagawa, Japan. This City Cycling Fantasy Film uses nonfiction stories and anecdotes gathered from the locals as inspiration, and turns them into fictional story about a girl that cycles around the town.
Breathing House | 12m12s | 2017
Director’s Statement
In the March of 2016, I headed for Kyoto because I had been commissioned to take a documentary film of an important house because it was going to be demolished soon. The house was with an important history as it promoted in Kyoto a health exercise named Okada Style Breathing which was very popular during the Taisho era. When I arrived at the house, people were already in the middle of moving out and the place was filled with the possessions of the four generations of people who had resided in the house. I started filming the house as I helped them with their packings.
While I looked inside the old drawers or the bookshelves, I found a hand-written note. When I saw it I felt a full respect for the long history of mankind’s search for peace of mind through trials and errors. I developed this work of mine by a process I had never employed before. I observed and filmed a real event in life to edit it afterwards in my own way. Hence, this work may be interpreted as a fantasy story about breathing that is connected to the Breathing House I filmed.
hottamaru・days | 37m11s | 2015
There is a wooden one-story house. In this tiny house, four dancer nymphs are living besides Satoko (Singer) , a human being. They are absorbed in Satoko’s music and having a comfortable life. But one day, dancer nymphs found by chance that another little girl was living in the house…
Note:
“Hottamaru” is a coined word that is made of two Japanese words “Hotteoku”(leaving something as it is) and “Tamaru”(accumulating). It means things that accumulate if we leave something as it is. Fallen things from human body such as hair, nails, skins of the sole of their feet. Or various smells that accumulate in everyday life.
I want to go out | 6m55s | 2014
Director’s Statement
We often divide human civilization and nature, but there is no perfect human society and its order, it is all just a part of nature. And nature is the absurd thing that we cannot control or fight against. We should just accept it. And even after we accept it, if we still have the greed, then in a way we can believe only this strong greed. Unyielding desire. That we should value it. This desire also is a nature.
-Confusing as a spring, stink bug came to the warm room and died away. I often superimposed myself and this stink bug, putting the corpse into tissues and dumping, said to them, “Yes, I know, but still you want to go out”-
February,2014
At Akiyoshidai International Art Village.
Bicycle girl | 9m58s | 2013
Grooming | 4m26s | 2013
