Introduction
Re-Encountering the Human
The curtain rises on the 19th Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival. In response to call for submissions, we received a grand total— and the largest to date—of 2676 films from around the world. I would like to convey my deepest gratitude to all of the filmmakers who kept our biennial film festival in mind and sent in their work. The lineups for this year’s International Competition and New Asian Currents have now come together after more than half a year of the utmost careful selection. All of these films earnestly, yet with unexpected perspectives and processes, capture the present of an increasingly chaotic world, challenging and renewing our ossified imagination, common sense, and ethical stances. In certain parts of the world, people are driven out, those who remain are massacred, the warmth and lives that people had undoubtedly carved out there are forcibly erased, treated as if they never existed. As brutalities are repeated, the “other”—alive the same as us— are seen as no more than faceless numbers, and an apathetic attitude has become widespread. Images, films—how should they confront this world in crisis, and what can they portray? How should we receive these works, which condense in various forms traces of their creators’ struggles with such questions? Taking various relations like nation, family, neighbor, and friend purely as an index, the first step is to feel people’s near-tangible breath passing through the projector’s light and breaking upon the screening space, to carve their faces and voices into our hearts. It is to encounter people as humans, to speak with them, to continue connecting with others candidly, even if on some small scale. We must create a time to do so through screenings and conversations, if we are to build even a slightly better world. This is the duty with which this film festival is tasked.
In order to shape this year’s program and build up the platform that is the film festival, the connections and co-operation of many people were indispensable. In particular, for this year’s venue preparations, we again made a number of difficult requests to everyone at the Yamagata Central Public Hall, Yamagata Citizens’ Hall, and Forum Yamagata— places we have used for many years as venues for the festival. I am filled with gratitude for the attentive care of each venue’s members, who spared no effort in cooperating with the film festival. Four years from now, in 2029, the Citizens’ Hall will be relocated, so counting this year, festival events will be held twice more at the current building. Certainly among Yamagata City residents, and likely among the audiences who passed through over the years, there are those who hold some affection for the aging halls. The atmosphere, smells, echoes, and textures of these venues, each of which have their own unique charm—these elements, together with the excitement of the films, surely remain deep in people’s memories, long after each festival has ended. Then, there are the volunteers who welcome audiences at these venues. The wonderful sight of their characteristic, bright smiles is another of this film festival’s charms. This year as well, many people are participating from across the country. We hope this will lead to stimulating exchanges with all of the guests and audience members, both here and elsewhere.
This year, as operations continue to face financial challenges, we received generous support and donations from the Agency for Cultural Affairs’ promotion of international film festivals, as well as from many individuals. To all of the NPO members and co-operative groups who have long supported us, and to the companies who came forward recently to lend us their backing, I would like to express our profound gratitude for their generous, reassuring encouragement.
Finally, I would like to convey our heartfelt thanks to filmmaker Makino Takashi, who, in the midst of his busy schedule, put his soul into creating the beautiful festival title roll for this year’s edition. To everyone who made their way to Yamagata again this year, I hope that you may share in the many discoveries, passions, excitements, and spirit of solidarity.
A Place for Stories, the Power of Expression
Now, as wars and social divisions intensify around the world and wear away at our sense of normality: Filmmakers are still thriving—at times boldly braving the tempestuous waves of this cruel era, at times working with detachment, above the fray.
This year’s International Competition features four debut feature films by filmmakers from diverse backgrounds, including Another Home, which follows the people who gather at a small eatery on an outlying Hong Kong island amid the turmoil of pro-democracy protests. Other debuts are from Guadeloupe, Chile, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in addition to impassioned new works by known auteurs. New Asian Currents features two films by female directors from Afghanistan, where the Taliban regime severely restricts women’s rights, in a selection of films that resonate with the world of now that are sure to astonish viewers, many by filmmakers at Yamagata for the first time.
A major American Direct Cinema retrospective brings together sixteen programs that pose questions surprisingly relevant to now, even as they highlight new aspects of this important chapter of documentary film history often identified with Frederick Wiseman in Japan. A “Direct Cinema Special Selection” opens the festival with a series of short films closely linked to the contemporary art and burgeoning counterculture of the 1960s, and Panola—about the racist violence that continues to this day.
Palestine—Memory of the Land focuses on the memories of people rooted in the Palestinian land. The films, which shed light on the history and future of Palestine, also connect directly to now.
The abundant Yamagata and Film program includes a project to screen previously unreleased and newly digitalized footage; from A Movie Capital, which documented YIDFF ’89, a selection of home movies from Taiwan and Japan, and documentaries produced by local Yamagata television stations. The Cinema with Us, Film Letter to the Future, and Yamagata Rough Cut! programs will surely captivate with new endeavors in the context of their original concepts.
Narita: Heta Village and Why Is Yellow Middle of Rainbow? will be screened as Special Invitation Films to commemorate what would have been the 90th birthday year of filmmaker Ogawa Shinsuke. The former of these films marked a turning point for Ogawa’s production company, which moved to Yamagata after filming wrapped, and the latter was dedicated to Ogawa by its director Kidlat Tahimik—it will be screened also in memory of Yano Kazuyuki, the first YIDFF Tokyo office director, who passed away in August of 2024. Good Valley Stories, José Luis Guerín’s first new film in ten years, looks at the now of an immigrant community of multiple origins whose character as a community was shaped by settling in the Barcelona suburbs, escaping the enclosure of the “immigrant” narrative, and overlapping with us— drifting through our days in search of life forms that strive to connect.
This year marks 80 years since the end of WWII and also since the atomic bombings in Japan, and the festival’s closing film will be The Voices of the Silenced, directed by Park Soo-nam and Park Maeui. This multi-layered work intertwines the stories of the voiceless, buried by history, with a personal dialogue between a mother and her postwargeneration daughter. Viewers will sense the words exchanged as if in their very bodies.
The films to be screened are vital documents, and a part of how memory is expressed. How are we to see these films, to hear them, feel them, to express our experiences of them in our own voices and words? Various kinds of spaces for conversation will be opened up for festival goers, from talk events and discussions with filmmakers and producers, to sites for spontaneous dialogue. Talking about films, talking about the deceased, talking about things that remain—all this will also be a way of caring for the memories of all of us alive now. I sincerely hope that this year’s event will be a fun and peaceful experience for all who take part as we rejoice in new encounters, exchanges, and reunions—and take advantage of the unique time we are afforded here to reflect on the past, the present, and the future.
In closing, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to everyone who has provided so much support and hard work to make this film festival possible.