Sanae

One spring, Eri, a Holstein cow, falls in love with Sawa, a Jersey newcomer. Eri idolizes Sawa and longs to be close to her, to become one with her. To refine her intense feelings for Sawa, Eri subjects herself to ascetic practices and rituals of her own making. In a world where those who do not bear children are disposed of, Eri has fallen for someone who shares the same fate.

Jyowa is a made-up word created by Yukimura Sensei which merges the characters for “rope” and for “speaking or communicating”, hence it can be translated as “communicating through ropes” or “rope stories”. This project was started in Tokyo in 2011 as a documentary film, yet it ended up becoming more of an aesthetic experience that takes the viewer into the unique universe of five of Japan’s top rope artists (by order of appearance): Naka Akira, Yukimura Haruki, Nawashi Kanna, Urado Hiroshi and Hajime Kinoko. In each of the the five chapters we can see two people taking a journey into a deep and profound level of communication in which rope takes a very special place.