Oasis
- JAPAN / 2022 / Japanese / Color / DCP / 56 min
Director, Photography, Editing: Okawa Keiko
Photography: Ota Tatsunari
Music: Nonaka Takuma
Sound Mixing: Hwang Young-chang
Produced by: “Cultural Narrative of a City” project (Keio University Art Center)
Mai, an artist, and Rintaro, a bicycle builder. The two weave through their city on bicycles. A river under an overpass, the ivy in a ditch, state housing in the process of demolition . . . . The film follows the couple as they move about, taking pictures of whatever catches their eye. Mai believes that even these small stories from everyday encounters constitute the culture of a city and the film documents Mai’s process of incorporating these stories into her work. The film was produced as part of the “Cultural Narrative of a City” project, which strives to present the “city” of Minato Ward in all its delicate yet vibrant cultural diversity.
Okawa KeikoBorn in Ishikawa Prefecture, 1978. Okawa has a degree from the Graduate School of Film and New Media, Tokyo University of the Arts. She worked on Yuki and Nina (2009, dir. Suwa Nobuhiro) as an assistant editor. She was also editor on the films Fishmans (2021, dir. Teshima Yuki), Haruhara-san’s Recorder (2022, dir. Sugita Kyoshi), and Small, Slow but Steady (2022, dir. Miyake Sho). She directed A Home Within Foreign Borders (2013). She also participates as a lecturer for “Children Meet Cinema,” a Japan-wide educational film workshop.