SHORT FILM: 10 nominees + 1 special screening

1MY AMERICA
2Viva Viva Escolta
3Schizophrenia
4Two Old Dogs
5Teen Summer
6First Love
7White Fireworks
8Wind chime
9Don’t Let Our Greatest Treasure, Life, Come to Naught: A Mother Speaks 6 Years After the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami
10SHIMAKO AND SHODOSHIMA ISLAND
11Complex x Complex

Join the Voting for “Audience Award”

Short Film Competition audiences can vote for each favorite film for Audience Award. The winner will be announced in the Film Competition Awards Ceremony from 17:30 on 9 Sep. Sat. at the Large Conference Room.

MY AMERICA

Drama
Japan / 2016 / 23 min.
Director : Kumi Tanimoto
Cast : Mana Hatsukari, Kento Furukoshi

story: Rima Kawasaki, Japanese student attending an American School in Tokyo, is highly Americanized and hates her home country of Japan. It is through meeting Sunaga, an odd but genuine Japanese guy, that Rima starts to take a more level-headed approach to her identity as a Japanese.

Viva Viva Escolta

Drama
Philippines / 2016 / 20 min.
Director: Janus Victoria
Cast: Anna Luna, Cedrick Juan

story: Consuelo, a ghost who has haunted Escolta for many years, finds a respite from her loneliness in Joey, a young man who has just died. As the two ghosts pass the time before Joey moves on to the afterlife, Consuelo questions her reasons for staying put.

Schizophrenia

Animation, Experimental video
Japan / 2016 / 10 min.
Director : Yuri Muraoka
Cast : Yuri Muraoka

story: Self-portrait in my 7th year of treatment for schizophrenia. An obsession by the name of “odd-numbers” torments me in daily life. A death sentence is being pronounced. With the sound of the scaffold coming down, the fear of self-destruction that “reality” breaks into pieces under my feet.

Two Old Dogs

Drama
Japan / 2016 / 30 min.
Director : Reiko Saito
Cast : Yosuke Saito, Makiko Watanabe

story: On the day of his retirement, Ando came home to find his wife gone leaving only divorce papers. That, too, is a result of his arrogant ways. Left alone, Ando adopts and dotes on a stray dog. Several years later, Ando, now an old man, visits his daughter who lives away from him, and asks her to take care of the dog for him.

Teen Summer

Documentary
Japan, France / 2016 / 25 min.
Director : Aki Fujiwara
Cast : Hiro Tamada, BIN Mael

story: A 17-year-old boy heads to France alone. Being deaf, his first language is Japanese Sign Language. In a foreign land that he has never visited before, he meets people, communicating in Japanese and French Sign Languages and French. It takes no time for the deaf boy to overcome the language barrier.

First Love

Drama
Korea / 2016 / 29 min.
Director : Ji-Sook Kang
Cast : Hee-Ja Seo, Haeng-Sim Jeong

story: Two girls at the same school fell in love with each other and their love has lasted for forty years. They could not express their love to the world but they have lived a happy life. One day, however, a sudden death strikes their relationship. Based on a tragic true story which happened in Busan in 2013.

White Fireworks

Animation
Japan / 2016 / 9 min.
Director : Asuka Dokai

story: On a winter night, the manufacturer was making grenades in his workshop.
As it happens, one of the grenades becomes endowed with a soul of its own.
“I am sorry I have created you.”
Wondering why he exists at all, the little grenade boy goes off into the wood.

Wind chime

Drama
Japan / 2017 / 18 min.
Director : Mayu Ryokucha
Cast : Tomomi Sugai, Mayu Ryokucha

story: Two sisters live together in an apartment. One afternoon, struggling actress Yoko gets help from elder sister Michiko to read over a script. As the practice gets heated and Yoko suggests an improvisation, two sisters find themselves getting lost between the reality and acting.

Don’t Let Our Greatest Treasure, Life, Come to Naught: A Mother Speaks 6 Years After the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami

Documentary
Japan / 2017 / 21 min.
Director : Sugiyama Jogakuen University, Tocihkubo Lab (Representative: Kana Isogai)
Cast : Mika Sato, Kana Isogai

story: Six years after the Great East Japan Earthquake, it still remains a mystery as to why the kindergarten bus with small children on board takes the coastal route despite a major tsunami alarm. A woman from Ishinomaki City, Miyagi, who has lost her elder daughter, continues to hand down the tragic story to appeal how precious life is. On March 11, 2017, fireworks are launched in Ishinomaki to commemorate the 7th anniversary of the tragedy.

SHIMAKO AND SHODOSHIMA ISLAND

Drama
Japan / 2017 / 19 min.
Director : Shiho Kouzai
Cast : Madoka Yoshida, Misato Tanaka

story: Shimako lives alone with her scriptwriter father, who suddenly declares his plan to marry popular actress Miki Naruse. Miki invites Shimako to travel to Shodo Island with her. While on the island, Miki tries hard to stall their wedding plan, but….

Special Screening

Complex x Complex

Animation
Japan / 2015 / 24 min.
Director : Miyuki Fukuda
Voice Actor : Kanae Hayashi, Seigo Agatsuma
Distribution : GACHINKO Film

story: Eighth grader Yui longs to be a grown-up. She considers armpit hair the symbol of adulthood, so her classmate Takeo—who has the thickest underarm hair in the class—becomes her idol. Is it love? A coming-of-age story about puberty, love, and halting conversation.