Amusement Ride

Shot with a telephoto lens from inside a cabin of Cosmo Clock 21, a Ferris wheel in Yokohama, Amusement Ride presents a distorted view of its mechanical structure. Focusing on intermittent vertical movement, the image echoes the motion of film passing through the gate of a projector or camera.

Ten Mornings Ten Evenings and One Horizon

The film depicts bridges along the Yahagi River, near where the filmmaker grew up in Japan. Each bridge was filmed twice on the same day — once in the morning and once in the evening. The image was exposed one-sixth of the frame at a time, producing a visual rhythm that evokes the gradual rising and setting of the sun. The film is dedicated to the filmmaker's father, who was raised in Hiraya Village, Nagano, where the source of the Yahagi River is located.

45 7 Broadway

Set in Times Square, 45 7 Broadway captures the noise and constant motion of one of the world's most recognisable intersections. Using a colour-separation technique, the film was originally shot on black-and-white stock through red, green, and blue filters, then optically printed onto colour film through the same filters. Layered images captured with a handheld camera further agitate the scenes, while advertisements on the digital billboards compete with one another for visual attention.

Tokyo - Ebisu

The JR Yamanote Line is one of Japan's busiest railway lines, comprising 29 stations  arranged in a continuous loop around central Tokyo at the time of filming. Shot clockwise from Tokyo Station to Ebisu Station, the film presents views from the platforms of 10 stations along the line. The in-camera visual effects and layered soundtracks heighten the sense of place, while subtly foregrounding the devices used to capture images and sound.

Apollo

Apollo reflects the filmmaker's interest in the material, medium, and apparatus of cinema. Sound is generated directly from the image via the optical soundtrack: in some passages, a 35mm still camera was used to expose the soundtrack area, while in others the film emulsion was physically scratched away. The film was created as Nishikawa Tomonari's senior thesis project at Binghamton University, under the supervision of Julie Murray.

Light, Noise, Smoke, and Light, Noise, Smoke

Fireworks at a summer festival in Japan were filmed with a Super 16 format camera in order to record images directly onto the optical soundtrack area of the filmstrip. In 16mm projection, the optical soundtrack is read 26 frames ahead of the projected image. Working with this mechanical offset, Nishikawa cut and spliced footage from two rolls of film into 26-frame segments and alternated between rolls. Through this structure, sound and image are repeatedly displaced from one another, while a distinct rhythm emerges from their continual misalignment.

Light, Noise, Smoke, and Light, Noise, Smoke

Fireworks filmed at a summer festival in Japan using a Super 16 camera captured images on the optical soundtrack area. In a 16mm projector, the photocell reading precedes the image projection by 26 frames. Footage from 2 rolls was cut into 26-frame shots, alternating between rolls to separate sound and visuals, creating a distinct rhythm in the film.

Flow

What if everything is in a flow, what is the meaning of life derived from its sense of interconnectedness? The film observes the flow of change and rhythms of breathing through abstract moving images. A poetic state of meditative process slowly comes into being.

Basal Banar (Sacred Ritual of Truth)

SOLITO returns to his hometown on Palawan Island and documents the sacred rituals and daily lives of its people, as the intrusion of multinational corporations and other forces constantly threatens the islanders' way of life. The echoes of percussion and rhythm of the images unite harmoniously, unveiling a personal rediscovery of indigenous roots in Southern Palawan.

#Unruly Geographies

Why Is Yellow the Middle of the Rainbow?

TAHIMIK's magnum opus is an epic film diary spanning the 1980s, as the filmmaker teamed up with his eldest son to make their own 'spaghetti western' with their 'spaghetti machine'. The decade-long path of the film moves seamlessly from the personal to the political as TAHIMIK's camera documents the events leading from the assassination of Benigno AQUINO to the fall of the Marcoses, all shown through a 'third world projector' salvaged from a junk pile on Navajo land.

#The Personal Is Political

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