Ms. Mako Kamitsuna received the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Best Editing at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival.
The Hiroshima International Film Festival invited her last year to screen films which she directed, and we are very excited to hear the news that she has just been awarded by her work.

Congratulations, Ms. Kamitsuna!

Mr. Hamagughi has gotten attention from Japan and abroad. He came up with this feature film during a workshop of an impromptu play by citizen participation in Kobe and shot it. It is a huge movie, which is 5 hours and 17 minutes long.
This film stars 4 women who don’t have any experience about acting. They attracted the interest for winning the best actress award in Locarno International Film Festival.

After the screening of the movie, Mr. Hamaguchi was welcomed with a lot of applause from the audience.
After his entrance, the other casts appeared subsequently, Rira Kawamura who played Kasumi, Syouki Saka who played Kazama, Tanabe Yasunobu, the producer(s) Takada Masaki, Okamono Hideyuki and Nohara Tadashi. Yukie Tanaka appeared late and said, “Since I was watching the movie, I didn’t want to go on stage.” It made the atmosphere congenial.
The prominent members were all together. The floor warmed by the presence of the casts. During the talk show, the casts were asked some questions. Some of them were about the work of a group called “HATANO KOUBOU”, which developed the plot and was the reason why the movie is 5 hours long, and so on. Their answers made us understand about the movie deeply. One of the audience asked Mr. Hamaguchi about the end of the movie which remained in doubt. He answered, “I thought the problems of the characters shouldn’t be solved. It is important that the people who watched this movie care about the continuation of the story.” I felt his passion by his words.
Ms. Kawamura who played main character talked about a workshop on acting by Mr. Hamaguchi, which was held in Kobe. She said, "While playing the character, I felt the effect of him. On the filming location, I was playing with believing Mr. Hamaguchi.” We could learn the trust relationship of them by her words.

Finally, Mr. Hamaguchi said, “This movie will be complete after being watched by all of you. Hereafter, this movie is going to be released, so if you like this movie, please go to a theater and watch this movie again, and tell your friends about this movie.” The talk show was ended with a round of applause.

After the screening, the large standing-room only crowd burst into applause, followed by the dashing appearance on the stage of Masatoshi Nagase, who played the dorayaki shop owner. The screening was followed by a talk show that was hosted by Mai Oshige, an announcer from Hiroshima Home Television.
Mr. Nagase, who was visiting Hiroshima for the first time in 20 years, commented smilingly that, “I just arrived some 20 minutes ago and can’t really believe I am here.” The atmosphere in the hall was friendly and relaxed.
This completely “barrier-free” showing (meaning the film had voice guidance narration and Japanese subtitles) served as a debut of such pioneering functions. Mr. Nagase commented that, “This barrier-free version marks a new type of fim presentation. I hope that it helps increase the number of filmgoers.” Discussing how he became involved in the production, Mr. Nagase, grinning, said that, “The director, Ms. Kawase posted a comment on the Facebook page of the company I belong to. This is also a new way of doing things.” He continued by stating that, “Ms. Nagase is a world-famous film director and I really wanted to work with her, so I answered, ‘Of course.’”

In regards to the work of the director, Mr. Nagase stated, “She’unique. Usually, I can just get into character after arriving on the set but with her, I had to be Sentaro from morning to night. There was no one saying “OK, Action!” or “Cut.” Revealing the secret of the filming, the actor said that in order to completely become his character of Sentaro he, “I really took my time…I went to his hometown to feel the same breeze, I spent the night in the apartment where he lived.”

He spoke for the first time about his long-time co-star Kirin Kiki: “She is truly a wonderful actress. Even now, when I hear the ending song of this film, I feel a bit overwhelmed. The love Ms. Kiki shows for her character, Ms. Tokue, and the feeling of vexation for not protecting her can really cause a welling up of emotions. I want to work with her on every picture from now on.”

Regarding Kyara Uchida, who is the actual granddaughter of Ms. Kiki and played the role of the junior high school student, Mr. Nagase commented, “In contrast to the three other junior high schoolers in the film, who act very cute and charged up, she plays a junior high student with a more dignified character. She is actually the same in real life and a real cute young lady.” The young actress showed her dedication to the craft in coming all the way from her current home in London to Japan for the filming.

Mr. Nagase revealed that although he bought a hot plate to practice making the dorayaki dough, they actually used a flat griddle in the movie so that practice didn’t really help much. Talking about leprosy, he said that, “It was just like the line I say in the movie, ‘I feel ashamed that I knew so little before.’ Even though I had read some things about the disease, it is completely different to hear that someone you know actual suffers from it.”

At one point, the discussion jumped to the Hiroshima Carp baseball team. Mr. Nagase, who spent his youth playing baseball in Miyazaki, shared this story with us: “Back when Takeshi Koba was the manager, the Carp players, who were training in Miyazaki, were kindly signing autographs for us, and when they finished, they said ‘Thank you” to us. I thought, ‘Wow! They are really pro players.’”

Finally the actor left us with this message: “You cannot say that a film is completed just because the production has been wrapped up. A film is completed when it is viewed by other persons, and is therefore still evolving until it is finally screened. I am so very thankful and happy that all of you could watch this film today. Although this is only the second Hiroshima International Film Festival, I hope it continues for 20 or 30 years more.”

On November 23 (Mon.), on about 2:00 p.m., a talk show titled “Henri Langlois Museum” was held with Philippe Azoury before screening “Le Berceau de Cristal” directed by Philippe Garrel.

During the talk show, Mr. Azoury explained the film, and talked about a background of screening of the film. In particular, Mr. Azoury gave us various interesting stories of the film, for example, in this film, a film which was to be thrown away was used due to lack of production costs.

Mr. Azoury said with the preliminary that “The film which is to be screened soon has intentionally no subtitle.” Then, he said what he wanted to say the most, i.e., “I would like you to understand the film like music. I decided to show the film without subtitles because I heard that a person who doesn’t understand Japanese could understand a Japanese film without subtitles thanks to its performance.

During the talk show, Mr. Azoury mainly explained the film, and ended the talk show, saying “Thank you very much” in fluent Japanese.

On November 23 (Mon.), Mr. Clement Rauger introduced “The Origin of Movie Vol. 2” of Cinémathèque Française before the screenings of “Collection of Lumiere Brothers’ early works” and “Luis Lumiere.” Mr. Rauger explained these films in order to allow the audience to understand these films well.

Regarding “Louis Lumiere,” Mr. Rauger explained the images and works of Luis Lumiere considered by Jean Renoir and Henri Langlois more simply so that we can compare the images and works considered by them. In particular, Mr. Rauger said that this film describes the reality of the 19th century and he provided us other very interesting stories.

Finally, the MC said, “Collection of Lumiere Brothers’ early works” and “Luis Lumiere” which are to be screened soon, and “Henri Langlois Museum” which will be screened later are all valuable works which we can’t see easily, so I hope you will also enjoy “Henri Langlois Museum.” Then, the talk show ended.