PROGRAM
E East Asian Experimental Competition5
【TOKYO】Theatre Image Forum：9/19(MON) 13:30、9/21(WED) 16:00
【KYOTO】Kyoto Minami Kaikan：10/9(SUN) 16:00
【NAGOYA】Aichi Arts Center：11/26(SAT) 13:15
4 works, 94 min.
Silver Cave
CAI Caibei / digital / 14min. / 2022
A flat metallic substance like aluminum foil covers the whole surface. What is drawn there in lines is a finger. When they move the lines become abstract, and eventually form the shapes of living creatures, the human body, faces, and so on. Composed in four chapters, moving images, sound, and text create a sense of tight coherence as the film rushes to its climax. Selected for the short film category at the Ottawa International Animation Festival held in September, 2022.
CAI Caibei
Caibei CAI (b.1992 Shenzhen, China) received her MA from Jiangnan University in 2017 and Royal College of Art in 2018. She obsesses with the illusion on the screen and believes the image has a body. She is good at capturing these hidden bodies by drawing frame by frame. The materials she makes traps include: fingerprint fluff, reflective scales, pixel teardrops and an uncertain tail. Her films always invite the audience to experience the conflicts within the body and the anxious environment outside the body.
The cleaning lady after 100 years : Spectre
SHICHIRI Kei / digital / 19min. / 2022
This work is a recreation of the filmmaker’s own multimedia stage drama, “Cleaning Lady.” The stage play involved a ghost of her mother at a young age appearing to a grey-haired cleaner, but in this work the digitally transformed movements of the characters are synthesized with various images. Here feature film director SHICHIRI Kei, whose work has transcended the boundaries between various fields in the domain of moving images, can be said to be truly in his element.
SHICHIRI Kei
In coming October, Se-back will be premiered in theater. He has released Waiting for a Pianist, the commemorative work for the opening of The Haruki Murakami Library. In December, the Fukuoka City General Library will be featuring and screening To the Edge of Cinema -Filmmaker Kei Shichiri Retrospective.
A SHORT STORY
BI Gan / digital / 15min. / 2022 / distributed by: ReallyLikeFilms
The latest work by Bi Gan, who is well-known internationally for films such as “Kaili Blues.” Seeking the most important thing in the world, a black cat embarks on a journey to visit three curious characters. Overflowing with delightful visual tricks, this work distills the essence of the dreamlike, hallucinatory expression the filmmaker has shown in his feature-length films.
BI Gan
BI Gan (1989, China) graduated in Directing in 2011. Kaili Blues (2015), made in his hometown in Southwest China, is his first feature film. It won the awards for Best Emerging Director and a Special Mention for Best First Feature at the Locarno Film Festival. Long Day’s Journey Into Night (2018), an international co-production between China and France, premiered in Cannes.
Humoresque
ISOBE Shinya / digital / 46min. / 2022
An abrupt turn from “13”, the work for which this filmmaker won the Grand Prize at the 2020 IFF, this film employs the technique of home movies to tell the story of the lives of a mother and child across four seasons. Day after day, water drawn from a lake is filtered and bartered for food. One day, a man visits with a portable gramophone. The song it plays is Dvorak’s “Humoresque.” What does he think about this music?
ISOBE Shinya
Born in Yokohama in 1982. Graduated from Tokyo Zokei University Graduate School. Graduated from Image Forum Institute of Image Forum. Major works include EDEN (2011), For rest (2017), 13 (2020).