Araki Yu

In a playful critique of Japanisme, the craze for Japanese art and design in Europe in the mid-1800s often rife with misunderstanding and projection, Honeymoon recasts the wedding scene of the opera and film Madame Butterfly.

This film about an expert griller working at one of the original and oldest Robata-yaki restaurants in Japan subtly refers to indigenous Ainu culture, as well as envisages the environmental movement in contemporary society

A quiet, atmospheric portrait of an elderly store owner in the small town of Yagi, Kyoto Prefecture. Yu Araki’s camera carefully observes the curiously named Mr. Yagi’s daily routine and interactions with local customers during the last autumn season for his shop, which is no longer in business. Documenting the passage of time in parallel with processes of depopulation, the title Tempo conjures a double meaning; playing on the Japanese word “tenpo (店舗)” which means “store”.

Set in Kushiro, the northeastern port city in Hokkaido, Fuel quietly observes an expert griller working at one of the oldest robatayaki (fireside cooking) restaurants in Japan. A patient and contemplative film that matches the unhurried pace of the traditional slow cooking method, its precise use of sound and image savors the beauty of this unique grilling process.

Based on Akutagawa Ryunosuke's short story The Devil and Tobacco (1916), the film introduces a curious account of the devil's introduction to Japan with St. Xavier in 1549, and how the devil transformed himself into an octopus (or devil fish) to eventually oppress Japanese Christians in the 17th century.

With the form of remote audio conversation for its main narrative, the essay film consists of four chapters, each of which has its own focus but is also interconnected with each other. Blending voice narratives in four languages, moving images and literary texts, the film is mainly made from home video collections created in the 1990s from both filmmakers’ families, with home videos shot in the 1960s by a Hong Kong family as interludes. The film not only unfolds how East Asian families created their own image with amateur filming devices but also tells stories of migration, travelling, growing and familial relationships.​

Deepening confusion becomes a delightful experience watching this collaborative film by Daniel Jacoby and Araki Yu. The documentary observes the idiosyncratic sounds and rhythms of Ban’ei, a rare kind of draft horse race that takes place only in Obihiro, Japan. Capturing the behind-the-scenes operations of the race, the film gradually twists itself into a knot as the excited voices of the commentators merge into a frenzy of gibberish.

Songs reverberate between mollusk shells, karaoke lyrics guiding a history of seaborn tragic lovers from different shores. -JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film