ithacafilmfest

Archive for February 21st, 2012

Documentary on Fukushima town screened at Berlin film festival

BERLIN (Kyodo) — A documentary film featuring residents forced to evacuate their town, home to the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station, was screened Sunday at the Berlin International Film Festival.

“I hope nobody in the world will have such an experience like ours again,” Katsutaka Idogawa, mayor of Futaba, Fukushima Prefecture, said in a video message shown after the screening of the tentatively titled “Nuclear Nation” by director Atsushi Funahashi.

“We had attracted the nuclear power plant to promote our town. But I changed my mind because of the accident. While a final disposal site for nuclear waste is not set, it is quite dangerous that many nuclear power plants are built in the world,” the mayor said.

The documentary depicts residents taking shelter at a former school building in Saitama Prefecture and scenes of Futaba town, which was evacuated due to a nuclear crisis following the March 2011 quake and tsunami.

The film director said after the screening, “I hope many people in the world will look at the current situation of people from Futaba. I will continue keeping a record until they find a permanent dwelling place.”

Musician Ryuichi Sakamoto, who composed piano music used in the documentary, also attended the screening.

Sakamoto said he plans to produce an album under the theme of Fukushima this summer and stage a performance with fellow musicians.

SE Asian Film Festival returns in March

SINGAPORE: The Southeast Asian Film Festival returns next month with its largest offering of cinematic works from the region.

It will showcase 20 challenging works by filmmakers from the region produced in the past two years.

Nineteen are Singapore premieres, while Myanmar will be part of the festival for the first time.

Many of the 20 films are also being shown outside their home country for the first time.

Organised by Singapore Art Museum (SAM), the films reflect and bring to the forefront a range of pertinent issues facing the region.

Director of SAM, Mr Tan Boon Hui, said: “Cinema, as a moving image medium, becomes a distinct and dynamic contemporary visual art form that examines the social and cultural transformations of today.

“Like many major contemporary art institutions around the world where films are a part of their regular programming, SAM is committed to extend the reach of our exhibitions by creating opportunities for visitors to experience the most contemporary visual art and cultural expressions of the Southeast Asian region and deliver new perspectives, through the powerful medium of cinema.”

The festival will offer the public greater insight into film-making and the Southeast Asian wave.

There will be a directors’ panel on 3 March, as well as 12 post-screening discussions with directors, producers and actors.

To provide an avenue for the works of local film makers to be presented to a wider audience, the festival will feature four Singapore films.

They include “The Legend of the Impacts” by Jeevan Nathan, “Water Hands” by Serbian-born Singapore-based director Vladimir Todorovic, as well as an animated feature film “Tatsumi” by Eric Khoo which debuted at Cannes and is Singapore’s official entry for the 2012 Academy Awards.

The festival will run from March 2-31 at the Moving Image Gallery at SAM at 8Q.