Juror
Ishii Gakuryu
[Juror’s Statement]
I am a fiction filmmaker, but when watching a film as a member of the audience, I do not care so much about genre or format, about whether a film is documentary, experimental or animated, a short or a feature, a major studio release or an independent production. What is important is whether a film stirs me. I am only truly interested in whether my mind, my whole body, resonate and vibrate together with some resonance of the soul introduced at a film’s core by a filmmaker.
Even if a creative work originates in a highly personal, instinctual vision, once it has grown like a living organism pulsing with a vitality of its own—beyond language, beyond ethnicity, beyond gender, age, or taste—it becomes a truly international expressive object, penetrating deeply into the viewer’s mind and consciousness, resonating and vibrating within, and in doing so calling forth and giving rise to a third consciousness, to intuition and inspiration, and to novel questions that are at once personal and also transcend the personal.
I believe that creative depth, penetration and expressiveness are the critical core elements that give birth to new kinds of filmmaking and new film viewing experiences, encouraging the generative flow of new feeling and consciousness—treasures to humanity.
I am truly grateful for the opportunity to be of some small help and to participate in the precious space afforded by the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, a festival that for many years has created an opportunity for this kind of resonant film viewing experience while also deeply understanding, sustaining–and carefully protecting and nurturing a crucial space for the conversations that follow.
Born in 1957. Directed the early features Crazy Thunder Road (1980) and Burst City (1982) before releasing The Crazy Family through the Directors Company in 1984. After a ten-year hiatus, he returned to filmmaking in 1994 with Angel Dust, followed by August in the Water (1995), Gojoe (2000), and Electric Dragon 80000V (2001). From 2006 to 2023, he served on the faculty of Kobe Design University. In 2010, he changed his name from Ishii Sogo to Ishii Gakuryu and went on to direct The Flower of Shanidar (2013), That’s It (2015), Bitter Honey (2016), and Punk Samurai Slash Down (2018). His latest film is The Box Man (2024).
Labyrinth of Dreams
(Yume no ginga)- JAPAN / 1997 / Japanese / B&W / 35mm / 90 min
Director, Script: Ishii Sogo
Original Story: Yumeno Kyusaku
Photography: Kasamatsu Norimichi
Artwork: Isomi Toshihiro
Music: Onogawa Hiroyuki
Cast: Komine Rena, Asano Tadanobu, Kyono Kotomi, Kurotani Tomoka, Mano Kirina, Matsuo Reiko
Source: Softgarage
Tomiko is small town bus conductor. One day, a new driver named Niitaka appears before her. Tomiko is visibly disturbed when she realizes that the bus driver involved in her close friend and fellow conductor Tsuyako’s death was also named Niitaka. Despite growing increasingly wary of him and his involvement in other accidents involving female conductors, Tomiko finds herself helplessly drawn to his seductive presence. The story of the intertwined fate of two lovers, based on a novel by Yumeno Kyusaku, and shot on film in dreamy black and white.