イメージフォーラム・フェスティバル 2020

Prize-Winning Works of East Asian Experimental Competition 2023

This year’s “East Asian Experimental Competition” received a total of 400 submissions from Japan, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and South Korea, and after two carefully conducted rounds of screening 32 works were selected for nomination. The final evaluation was conducted during the screenings in Tokyo by the three jurors listed below.

On 6th October, award ceremony has held at Theatre Image Forum, and 6 works were awarded prizes and 1 work was selected by the audience’s voting, it’s as below.

 

 

■ Prize-Winning Works and Jury’s comments

 

Grand Prize

No changes have taken in our life　　XU Jingwei / digital / 44min. / 2022 (China)

This film impressed all of us with its nuanced and patient observational approach to depict the psychologically affecting landscape of a contemporary young person’s perspective in contemporary China. The film uses a memorable combination of lushly painted backgrounds and unstable, emotive character animation to express the existential confusion of the main character with dark humor and poetic pathos. The touches of surrealism and absurdity also effectively contribute to the film’s strange and memorable power, creating a world in which an individual is both disturbed and curious about the uncertain world around him.

 

 

TERAYAMA Shuji Prize

Delivery Dancer’s Sphere　　Ayoung KIM / digital / 26min. / 2023 (Korea)

It was as if looking in to the world, spinning the sphere that appears in the beginning of the film. Inside the sphere is a labyrinth, the flow of time is uncertain. An only a true dancer can make a crack in the world as it goes around and around. In order to escape from the world and to break free of that karma, self-annihilation is necessary. The story told in this film was very classic and poetic, while seeking a new way of expression using the newest technology. The juries decided it was appropriate for the name of Shuji Terayama.

 

 

SHIBUYA SKY Prize

Sewing Love　　XU Yuan / digital / 9min. / 2023 (China / Japan)

The film employs a highly creative animation style, combined with an eclectic and perfectly suited soundtrack, to express the spectacular, dramatic emotions of a young romance that evolves into something much more insidious. The use of color and texture is unique and effective, the film is full of visual surprise and creativity, and the emotional resonance of the film’s themes is vividly communicated by the artist.

 

 

 

Award for Excellence

An Asian Ghost Story　　Bo WANG / digital / 37min. / 2023 (China / Netherlands)

The film takes up the fact that wigs were deeply involved in the economic development of postwar Asia, a fact almost forgotten perhaps by most of the people. While a film can represent things easily as a mere fact, this work sometimes includes scenes can be taken as fiction. This work reminds us the uncertainess and the decieving quality of the film media. The work shows us the effectiveness of what could be called the “research-based art with fiction”. The director has also created installation works, and this work was also exhibited as an installation in Hong Kong. In the future, we look forward to seeing more works by the director that appeal to the viewer’s body sensation.

 

 

The Perfect Human　　Lilan Yang / digital (original format: 16mm) / 13min. / 2023 (China / USA)

We were amazed by the structure of the film, as it visually translates (or paraphrases) the ironic notion “perfect human” of the 1968 film using unsupervised machine learning, an AI technology that is expected to be “perfect” at all times. Perhaps the appeal of this work, which more than makes up for the weakness of its inability to convey the true meaning of the work without comparison to the original film and its making process, comes from the monochrome and tactile texture of the images. We look forward to the future of this artist’s work, which boldly tackles the new visual language.

 

 

/laɪkawaːʔ/　　NOSE Daisuke / digital / 2min / 2023 (Japan)

Practicing scales is boring. But watching this film, maybe the very fact of it could be a precious thing in itself, and that someone somewhere exists so peacefully in such a meadow, and that it is our earth, which makes us feel a little warm. And then we realize the trick of those eyes from “the heaven”, and then we are left just astonished.

 

 

 

Audience Award in Tokyo

Sewing Love　　XU Yuan / digital / 9min. / 2023 (China / Japan)

 

Audience Award in Kyoto

I stitch my skin to the ground　　USAMI Nao / digital / 22min. / 2023 (Japan)

 

Audience Award in Nagoya

LETHE　　GOSHIMA Kazuhiro / digital / 21min. / 2023 (Japan)

 

■ Final Evaluation Jury

ENDO Maiko (film director and artist / Japan)
HOSAKA Kenjiro (director, Shiga Museum of Art / Japan)
Mark TOSCANO (curator, film preservationist, and educator / USA)